Russian Court Upholds Brittney Griner’s 9-Year Sentence

A Russian court on Tuesday upheld the American basketball star Brittney Griner’s sentence on drug smuggling charges, clearing the way for her to serve nine years in a penal colony and adding to pressure on the United States government to negotiate a deal for her release.

“We are very disappointed,” Ms. Griner’s attorneys said in a statement after the ruling by a three-judge panel of an appeals court near Moscow. “The verdict contains numerous defects and we hoped that the court of appeal would take them into consideration.”

The decision means Ms. Griner will begin serving her sentence soon, but it was not immediately clear if her legal options were exhausted. There are two higher courts above the appellate division, culminating in the Supreme Court, but Ms. Griner’s lawyers said they had not decided whether to take the case any further.

“We need to discuss this with our client,” the statement said. “We generally think that we must use all the available legal tools, especially given the harsh and unprecedented nature of her verdict.”

Higher courts in Russia also are not known for overturning verdicts, especially in a case involving foreign policy and the interests of the Kremlin.

President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, denounced the ruling as “another sham judicial proceeding” and said in a statement that Ms. Griner “should be released immediately.”

The basketball star, 31, did not appear in court on Tuesday and participated in the proceedings via a video link from the detention center where she has been held since her arrest in February. Her lawyers said it could be a few months before she is moved to a penal colony.

Since she was arrested at a Moscow airport days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Ms. Griner’s fate has become entangled in the increasingly acrimonious relations between Moscow and Washington. As the Biden administration enforces harsh sanctions against President Vladimir V. Putin’s government as punishment for the invasion, American officials have accused Russia of using Ms. Griner and other U.S. citizens in Russian custody as bargaining chips.

In July, the Biden administration offered a prisoner swap involving Ms. Griner, but Russian officials have said it was premature to discuss a deal while her case was underway. One person briefed on the talks said at the time that the United States had proposed exchanging Ms. Griner — along with Paul Whelan, a former Marine held since December 2018 — for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year federal prison sentence for charges including conspiring to kill Americans.