FILE - Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner during the first half of Game 2 of basketball's WNBA Finals against the Chicago Sky, Oct. 13, 2021, in Phoenix. Brittney Griner is easily the most prominent American locked up by a foreign country. But the WNBA star’s case is tangled up with that of another prisoner few Americans have ever heard of. Paul Whelan has been held in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage charges he and the U.S. government say are false. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri, File)