Russia Is Open to Talks on Brittney Griner Prisoner Swap, Kremlin Official Says

“We are ready to discuss this topic, but within the framework of a channel that was agreed upon by Presidents Putin and Biden,” Mr. Lavrov said Friday in Phnom Penh, on the sidelines of a regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Mr. Lavrov didn’t give any more details of the framework. Mr. Biden had raised the issue of Americans imprisoned in Russia with Russian President

Vladimir Putin

at a high-profile summit in Geneva last year.

U.S. Secretary of State

Antony Blinken,

who was also in Phnom Penh for the Asean forum, acknowledged Mr. Lavrov’s remark and reiterated the U.S.’s “significant concern” about the Russian government’s legal system and its use of “individuals as political pawns.”

“We put forward, as you know, a substantial proposal that Russia should engage with us on,” Mr. Blinken told reporters. “And what Foreign Minister Lavrov said this morning and said publicly is that they are prepared to engage through channels we’ve established to do just that, and we’ll be pursuing.”

President Biden, when asked Friday about the administration’s efforts to bring Ms. Griner home, said: “I’m hopeful. We are working hard.”

Ms. Griner’s sentence was close to the maximum 10-year penalty for the charges of drug possession and smuggling that she faced. The sentence also includes a fine of 1 million rubles, about $16,300. She will be transferred to a penal colony, the judge said Thursday, with the 5½ months she spent in detention before her trial included in her term.

Russian prosecutors said Ms. Griner, a Phoenix Mercury star who for years has played with UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason, had vape cartridges containing a total of 0.702 grams of hashish oil in her luggage when she arrived in Russia in February—one week before the invasion of Ukraine. Ms. Griner admitted to carrying the drugs but said she packed them by mistake and never intended to violate Russian law. She presented an Arizona doctor’s prescription to use marijuana to treat pain.

Ms. Griner’s lawyer, Alexander Boykov, said Friday it would take up to three months for an appeal to be filed and considered.

“We don’t agree with such a harsh sentence,” Mr. Boykov said Friday in comments carried by Russian state news agency TASS. “In normal judicial practice this is five to six years, and a third to half of cases are suspended sentences.”

While Mr. Boykov acknowledged there was little chance of an appeal being granted, he said it was worth trying.

Washington has pressed Moscow to accept what it characterized as a “substantial proposal” for Ms. Griner’s release and that of Mr. Whelan, who was handed a 16-year sentence for espionage in 2020 and whom the U.S. also considers wrongfully detained.

People familiar with the matter say the proposal would free the pair in exchange for the release of a Russian arms dealer held in the U.S., Viktor Bout, who has five years remaining on a sentence he received in 2012. Russia has also demanded the trade include Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a murder sentence in Germany for the killing of a Chechen militant in Berlin, a U.S. official said.

—Keith Zhai in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, contributed to this article.

Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com