U.S. basketball participant Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to 9 years in a Russian penal colony in August for drug smuggling, is seen on a display through a video hyperlink from a remand jail throughout a courtroom listening to to think about an attraction in opposition to her sentence, on the Moscow regional courtroom on Oct. 25.

Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

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Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. basketball participant Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to 9 years in a Russian penal colony in August for drug smuggling, is seen on a display through a video hyperlink from a remand jail throughout a courtroom listening to to think about an attraction in opposition to her sentence, on the Moscow regional courtroom on Oct. 25.

Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

MOSCOW — U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner has arrived in a jail colony within the Russian republic of Mordovia — 300 miles southeast of Moscow — to start serving out a nine-year sentence on drug expenses, her attorneys say.

The announcement by Griner’s authorized crew Thursday was the primary affirmation of the American’s whereabouts since Russian authorities transferred her from a Moscow detention heart almost two weeks in the past — a time period typical for Russia’s opaque jail switch system.

Griner’s attorneys Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov confirmed that they had visited Griner on the IK-2 girls’s jail colony within the city of Yavas earlier this week.

“Brittney is doing as well as could be expected and trying to stay strong as she adapts to a new environment,” stated the attorneys in a press release launched to the media.

“Considering this is a very challenging period for her, there will be no no further comments from us.”

Last August, Griner was sentenced by a Russian courtroom to 9 years in a jail colony for carrying lower than a gram of hash oil into Russia when she arrived for play within the Russian girls’s skilled basketball league earlier this yr.

In courtroom, Griner admitted to mistakenly packing two vape cartridges in her rush to pack her baggage — however supplied paperwork that confirmed the hash oil was legally prescribed by her U.S. physician for ache administration.

The U.S. authorities has labeled Griner “wrongfully detained” and continues to hunt a prisoner swap with Russia involving Griner and one other jailed American, former Marine Paul Whelan.

Whelan is serving out a 16-year sentence for espionage at separate jail colony in Mordovia.

Former inmates tell NPR that Russia’s jail colonies are identified for primative circumstances and punishing work regimens rooted within the Soviet Union’s gulag jail system.