If Brittney Griner is going to return to the U.S. anytime soon, it almost certainly will happen via a prisoner exchange.

The jailed American basketball star exhausted the last of her legal options on Tuesday when her last-gasp appeal predictably went nowhere.

A Moscow regional court upheld Griner’s August conviction on charges of drug possession and drug smuggling with criminal intent. The court rejected arguments from Griner’s defense attorneys that her nine-year prison sentence was excessive and unjustified under Russian law.

Griner participated in Tuesday’s appeal hearing via video call from behind the white bars of her jail cell at a detention center outside Moscow. She has been held there since last February when she flew into Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and Russian police allegedly found cannabis oil vape cartridges in her luggage.