Griner back in U.S. in 'good spirits' as Russia's Bout lands in Moscow

Basketball star Brittney Griner landed in the United States on Friday after 10 months in Russian detention following a prisoner swap with arms dealer Viktor Bout who flew home hours earlier to embrace his family on the airport tarmac in Moscow.

"They say she's in very good spirits, appears to be in good health," White House spokesman John Kirby told MSNBC in an interview citing U.S. officials on the ground in San Antonio, Texas, where she arrived just before dawn.

Securing Thursday's swap, after months of painstaking negotiations, was a rare instance of U.S.-Russian cooperation after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, although the Kremlin was quick to say it did not show improving relations.

Russia's state media trumpeted the swap as a win for Moscow, after the release of a man who the U.S. Department of Justice has described as one of the world's most prolific arms dealers who had sold weapons across the globe to terrorists and America's enemies for decades. Bout always denied the charges.