U.S. Offer to Swap Russian Arms Dealer for Griner Highlights Uncomfortable Choices
“I take a pretty hard line on it,” said John R. Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador and national security adviser. “It’s one thing to exchange prisoners of war. It’s one thing to exchange spies when you know that’s going on.” But “negotiations and exchanges with terrorists or with authoritarian governments” become dangerous “because then you’re just putting a price on the next American hostage.”

Ms. Griner’s case has commanded attention not just because she is a star player in the W.N.B.A. but also because her arrest came a week before Russia invaded Ukraine and seemed to be a brazen attempt by Moscow to gain a bargaining chip. Mr. Biden has come under enormous pressure to find a way to free her and approved the offer of Mr. Bout over the concerns of the Justice Department, which often takes a dim view of horse trading the criminals it puts away.

Mr. Bout, a former Soviet military officer, was once one of the world’s most wanted men, accused of selling weapons to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and various governments and militants in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Algeria. The movie “Lord of War,” starring Nicolas Cage and released in 2005, was based on his case. American agencies hunted him down for years until finally catching up with him in Bangkok in 2008 and extraditing him in 2010.

Why the Russians would be so intent on freeing Mr. Bout so long after his capture is something of a mystery. Any secret information Moscow may have worried about him revealing presumably was spilled long ago or is certainly dated by now. But it may simply be a feeling of solidarity on the part of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a former K.G.B. officer.

“There are lots of hints in Bout’s biography, even on his Wikipedia page, which suggests that he had close ties with Soviet and Russian intelligence,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former American ambassador to Moscow. “You know who else does? Putin. My guess is that Putin wants to liberate his comrade. Loyalty among these folks, the Chekists, runs deep.”

Still, even after the U.S. offered up Mr. Bout, Russia seemed to be playing hard to get. After Mr. Blinken said he was ready to talk with Mr. Lavrov for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials indicated they were in no hurry. Mr. Lavrov “will pay attention to this request when time permits,” his spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday. “Now he has a busy schedule of international contacts.”