Early on a bright Thursday morning, Brittney Griner stood at the penal colony gates, her bags packed, breathing fog in the winter frost of Mordovia, a Russian region east of Moscow where most of the local economy depends on the penal colonies that dominate the landscape. Griner stood waiting for a transfer, apparently not knowing where she was being taken, a common practice in Russia when moving prisoners around. The prison guards cheerfully saw her off. “Will you come back here? Yes?” they asked Griner, as if talking to a small child. “Good job! Come back!” Then Griner got into a van, which took her to a plane. And if video of the event released by the F.S.B. is to be believed, it was only when the plane was in the air that Griner was told where she was being taken: home.