More than four months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport  for cannabis possession, American basketball star Brittney Griner is to  appear in court Monday for a preliminary hearing ahead of her trial.

The Phoenix Mercury star, considered in some polls to be the United  States' most gifted female athlete, could face 10 years in prison if  convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs.

Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S., acquittals can be overturned.

The trial date has not been announced, but is expected soon; Griner was  recently ordered to remain in pretrial detention until July 2.

The hearing in the court of the Moscow suburb of Khimki is to address procedural issues.

Griner's detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations.

She was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week  before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high  tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia's  denunciation of U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine.

Russian news media have repeatedly raised speculation that she could be  swapped for Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, nicknamed “The Merchant of  Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence on conviction of conspiracy to  kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization.

Russia has agitated for Bout's release for years. But the discrepancy  between Griner's case — she allegedly was found in possession of vape  cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Bout's global dealings in  deadly weapons could make such a swap unpalatable to the U.S.

Others have suggested that she could be traded in tandem with Paul  Whelan, a former Marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence  on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly  described as a set-up.