Brittney Griner's release is a miracle. Celebrate that, and save the politics for later.

Save the politics for later. Brittney Griner is coming home, and this is a time to rejoice.

A week ago, it seemed she was caught in a trap of history and autocratic rule and war. Now she is free. Thank God for that.

Given the odds and the terrible fate Griner was facing, this is an almost miraculous outcome. She is spared the Russian gulag that is still in place even three decades after the Soviet empire has crashed.

She was, according to former Russian prisoner Nadya Tolokonnikova of the punk band and protest group Pussy Riot, in the most dangerous women’s prison in Russia, IK-2 in the Mordovia region about 300 miles east of Moscow. The saying in Russian prisons is, “If you haven’t done time in Mordovia, you haven’t done time at all.”

It is a prison known for its brutality and torture, slave labor, filth and rotting food.

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A world-class athlete, a humble person

No human being deserves that kind of treatment, and Griner, who represented no threat to the Russian people or their country, was a mere pawn of the Kremlin. She was leverage for a government that is no more beneath taking hostages than it is invading its neighbors and executing their civilians.

It is the badness of that government, the sheer evil of what it is capable of doing under Vladimir Putin’s rule and its indifference to human suffering, that tells you how fortunate we are that Brittney Griner is homeward bound.

Griner is world-class athlete who has won Olympic gold, an NCAA championship and a WNBA title with the Phoenix Mercury. But she is also an unassuming person who grew up in tough circumstances. Her father threw her out of the house because she is gay, only to later reconcile with her.

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She is not a person who enjoys celebrity or seeks the limelight, her agent told The New Yorker magazine.

“Brittney Griner does not want to be famous,” said Lindsay Colas. “She wants to ride her skateboard down the street at dusk with a popsicle.”

My guess is that she will now become the strongest advocate for Americans still held in Russian prisons. Why? Because she didn't forget them in her communications to home.

Some Americans are not willing to forgive her protests against the flag and national anthem, and believe she deserved her fate for breaking Russian law.

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This lacks understanding for how selective Russian law is. Putin doesn’t need pretext to take an American hostage.

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It was never about hash oil

The Russians made Griner their prisoner for possessing small amounts of marijuana only a week before they invaded Ukraine. There were larger machinations at work.

We can discuss the politics and the costs for winning her release later. As for now, let’s just savor the moment.

Brittney Griner is an American. She is a Phoenician. She is our sister. She is free.

And God is good.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic, where this column first ran. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Brittney Griner is finally released from Russia. Politics can wait.