WASHINGTON — She is an American skilled basketball celebrity, accused of wearing cannabis oil in her baggage.

He’s a infamous Russian palms broker referred to as the “Service provider of Dying,” serving a 25-year federal jail sentence for conspiring to promote guns to those that stated they deliberate to kill American citizens.

And the Kremlin seems serious about linking their fates, in a possible maintain the Biden management that might unfastened each as Russia presses on with its battle in Ukraine.

The huge disparity between the circumstances of Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout highlights the extraordinary problem President Biden would face if he sought a prisoner change to unfastened Ms. Griner, the detained W.N.B.A. participant, from detention in Moscow. The Biden management, reluctant to create an incentive for the arrest or abduction of American citizens in a foreign country, could be hard-pressed to justify the discharge of a villainous determine like Mr. Bout.

On the identical time, Mr. Biden is underneath power to unfastened Ms. Griner, who was once arrested at a Moscow-area airport in February and whom the State Division categorised in Might as “wrongfully detained.” That displays fear that the Kremlin considers her leverage within the anxious disagreement between the US and Russia over Ukraine. Final week, dozens of teams representing other people of colour, ladies and L.G.B.T.Q. American citizens despatched a letter urging Mr. Biden to “make a deal to get Brittney again house to The united states instantly and safely.”

The associated fee for any deal might be Mr. Bout, 55, a former Soviet army officer who made a fortune in world palms trafficking earlier than he was once stuck in a federal sting operation and convicted of conspiring to promote guns to those that stated they deliberate to kill American citizens.

Russian officers have pressed Mr. Bout’s case for years, and in contemporary weeks Russian media retailers have immediately connected his case to Ms. Griner’s. Some, together with the state-owned Tass information provider, have even claimed that talks with Washington for a imaginable change are already underway, one thing that U.S. officers won’t ascertain.