Former Marine Trevor Reed, detained in Russia since 2019, returned to US in prisoner swap
A former Marine who had been detained in Russia for roughly three years after being accused of crimes he denies committing has been returned to the United States in a prisoner swap.
A former Marine who had been detained in Russia for roughly three years after being accused of crimes he denies committing has been returned to the United States in a prisoner swap.
Trevor Reed was arrested and charged with beating a police officer following a night of heavy drinking in the summer of 2019, and he had been detained since then, with both his parents and the U.S. government demanding his release. The U.S., in exchange for Reed's release, agreed to return Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut for conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the U.S.
"First and foremost, we’d like to thank President Biden for his kindness, his consideration, and for making the decision to bring Trevor home. The President’s action may have saved Trevor’s life," Reed's parents, Joey and Paula, said in a statement. "We’d also like to thank Ambassador John Sullivan and the Moscow Embassy staff for believing in Trevor’s innocence and for their zealous advocacy."
Joey and Paula appeared on CNN shortly after the news broke, and the former Marine's father explained that "they flew him from [Moscow] to Turkey, and then Trevor quickly told us that the American plane pulled up next to the Russian plane, and they walked both prisoners across at the same time, like you see in the movies."
Joey Reed also said that they had been able to speak with Trevor, and when they were on the phone, President Joe Biden called the family. They were first informed of Trevor's release by the State Department, Paula Reed said, though she said she didn't believe she could go into more detail.
"Today, we welcome home Trevor Reed and celebrate his return to the family that missed him dearly," Biden said in a statement. "Trevor, a former U.S. Marine, is free from Russian detention. I heard in the voices of Trevor’s parents how much they’ve worried about his health and missed his presence. And I was delighted to be able to share with them the good news about Trevor’s freedom."
A senior administration official told reporters that Reed's release "is a result of months and months of hard, careful work across the U.S. government. That includes negotiations on this discrete, particular issue set with the Russians that have been going on for a very long time. Ultimately, those negotiations led the president to make a very hard decision."
The conversations between the U.S. and Russia that facilitated this swap “were strictly limited to these topics, detain topics, they were not part of broader diplomatic discussions," the official added. "They were not the beginnings of discussions on other issues.”
The official also emphasized that the U.S. "commuted" Yaroshenko's prison sentence, a 20-year sentence handed down in 2011 after he was extradited to the U.S., and that his return to Russia "in no way undermines or diminishes the importance of the finding of his guilt."
Yaroshenko and arms trafficker Viktor Bout, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of agreeing to sell heavy weapons to a Colombian terrorist organization, had previously been named as possible targets for a prisoner swap.
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The president and Reed's parents met last month after they got Biden's attention outside of his motorcade weeks earlier. Joey Reed expressed concerns in a recent interview with the Washington Examiner that Russia's war in Ukraine, which has tamped down diplomatic overtures, would hurt his son's chances for freedom.
The prisoner exchange occurred in an undisclosed European country on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Two other Americans, Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, remain in Russian custody. The former has been detained on espionage charges that he denies, while the latter is a WNBA player who was arrested on charges of drug possession.
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"[Reed's] safe return is a testament to the priority my Administration places on bringing home Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained abroad," Biden's statement continued. "We won’t stop until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving arms of family and friends."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/former-marine-trevor-reed-detained-in-russia-since-2019-returned-to-u-s-in-prisoner-swap