After Griner trial, Kremlin says: we'll not discuss swaps in public

U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, sits inside a defendants' cage after the court's verdict in Khimki outside Moscow, Russia August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool

The Kremlin said on Friday that possible prisoner exchanges with the United States should not be discussed in public because if they were then they would never take place.

Speaking a day after U.S. basketball Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in Russian prison on drugs charges, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "If we discuss prisoner exchanges via the press then they will never take place".

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)