Russia and the United States have exchanged prisoners to secure the release of former US infantryman Trevor Reed. Reed was jailed in 2020 on charges of assault stemming from a drunken night in Moscow the previous year. Russia’s foreign ministry said he had been released after a “lengthy negotiation process” in exchange for Russian citizen Konstantin Yaroshenko, who has been in prison for more than a decade in the United States on drug smuggling charges.
Reed’s family issued a statement confirming his release, saying their “prayers have been answered and Trevor is on his way back to safety in the United States.”
The White House issued a statement in which President Joe Biden said he had informed the family about Reed’s freedom.
“We welcome Trevor Reed home and celebrate his return to the family, which he missed so much,” Mr Biden said in a statement. “I heard in the voices of Trevor’s parents how much they are worried about his health and lack his presence. And I was glad to share the good news of Trevor’s freedom with them.
Paula Reed, the mother of former US Marine Trevor Reed, who was sentenced to nine years in Russian prison, spoke at a press conference before the US Capitol to call for his release, September 16, 2020. Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty
Mr Biden thanked the President’s Special Envoy for Hostages Roger Carstens and US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, among others, for their “tireless and dedicated work” to secure Reid’s release. The president said the talks “require difficult decisions” which he “did not take lightly”, and promised that his administration would continue to work to get another former US Marine Paul Whelan and professional basketball player Britney Greerner out of Russian prisons. .
Whelan has been in prison since 2018, serving a 16-year sentence on espionage charges that the United States and his family say are fabricated. Greener has been detained in Russia since mid-February on drug charges.
A US official told CBS News Foreign Affairs correspondent and Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan that Wednesday’s prisoner exchange was not an indication of wider diplomatic engagement with Russia amid opposition to the war in Ukraine.
The Associated Press reported that the exchange of prisoners took place in a European nation on Wednesday, with flight tracking services showing that a Russian prison plane landed in the Turkish capital, Ankara, earlier in the day. The AP reported that the US Prison Bureau updated its website overnight to reflect that Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of cocaine smuggling in the US in 2010 and sentenced to 20 years, is no longer behind the bars.
Yaroshenko’s lawyer, Alexei Tarasov, was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as saying that his client was “now returning home”.
Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020 after being convicted of assaulting two Russian police officers. He has always claimed that he does not remember the incident and has pleaded not guilty. The US government has expressed concerns about the fairness of the trial against him.
Parents of the former Marine plead for his release from the Russian prison 04:55
Just two weeks ago, a Russian court rejected Reed’s appeal against his sentence and imprisonment and sent the case to a lower court. The decision was complained about by US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, who said at the time that Reed “remains in prison for a crime he did not commit.”
Reed’s family expressed serious concern for his health, saying they believed he had contracted tuberculosis in prison and had not received adequate medical care, although Russia’s prison service said earlier in April that he had been transferred to prison hospital.
In a statement released on April 11, Reed’s parents said they had managed to “re-establish indirect contact” with their son after not hearing from him for almost a week.
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Tucker Reals
Tucker Reals is the foreign editor of CBSNews.com, based at CBS News in London.
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