WASHINGTON (AP) – The worst possible time to take Trevor Reed home was the best.
At its lowest point in US-Russian relations in decades, it seemed like an incredible time to hope for the release of Reed, a former Marine who had been detained in Russia for nearly three years. Yet this week, the Biden administration completed a transaction it had previously seemed resilient to, exchanging Reid for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and convicted drug trafficker serving a 20-year sentence in Connecticut.
A series of events and considerations over the past two months have helped facilitate the exchange, including escalating Reed’s health concerns, a private meeting in the Oval Office between his parents and President Joe Biden, and a secret trip to Moscow by a former Russian diplomat on the brink of war. Ukraine.
“All three of them forced the White House to make a decision they hadn’t made before,” said Mickey Bergman, vice president of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement.
How the war – and the breakup of US-Russian relations – affected the deal is unclear. U.S. officials stressed that Reed’s release talks were narrow in scope, focusing directly on prisoners rather than the Russian war, and did not reflect broader diplomatic commitment. But while the timing of the deal was staggering, it is also clear that it was laid before the conflict began.
“I did it,” Biden told reporters Wednesday about the deal. “I picked him up. I picked it up three months ago. “
Just as the war was about to begin, Bergman and his counterpart, Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former governor of New Mexico, flew to Moscow on FedEx chief executive Fred Smith’s plane to meet with Russian government officials. It was a continuation of the negotiations they were leading to the release of Reed and another American prisoner, Paul Willan, the executive director of corporate security.
They left with the outlines of the one-on-one exchange, which eventually took place.
In Texas, Joey and Paula Reed worried that Russia’s war with Ukraine and the resulting tensions with the United States could close communication channels and hamper any common ground for negotiations. During meetings with administration officials last year – including the Justice Ministry, which is prosecuting Yaroshenko – the couple voiced support for the exchange, but said they were not made to think it was a viable option.
“They didn’t say, ‘Oh, we agree with you, this is a great deal.’ That’s a good idea, “Paula Reed said in an February interview with the Associated Press. “They did not say anything like that. They just said, “We hear you. Thank you very much.'”
But weeks after the war, the couple did something that caught the attention of the White House.
As Biden traveled to Texas to support the veterans, the Reeds stood along the route of the motorcade, hoping to get a meaningful face to face with the president. This did not happen, although he spoke on the phone with the couple. Later that month, they arrived in Washington and stood with signs near the White House, hoping to meet with the president again.
This time they were invited to the Oval Office to meet with Biden and other administration officials. The White House issued a statement that evening reaffirming its commitment to bring Reed and Whelan back home, an issue raised by senior officials in private meetings with Russian leaders.
The meeting was a rare presidential access for the family of an American detainee, especially since Biden himself was less public than his predecessor, Donald Trump, in his efforts to bring the Americans home. Behind the scenes, however, Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken were suing the Russians, and Roger Carstens, the president’s special envoy for hostages, was also working on the issue.
Reed’s health also hung in the background. In March, Reed told his parents that he had coughed up blood several times a day, had lung pain and a broken rib. He contracted COVID-19 last year. Even on Wednesday, his parents were surprised by how thin their son looked during a video of the transfer. They said they expected him to need medical attention before resuming his daily life in Texas.
These health problems have also worried US officials.
“I think this has really contributed to intensifying the talks on this issue, to the point where we managed to make this agreement, to the point where we managed to turn to some of the logistics just to do it,” said a senior official. of the administration to reporters at a briefing this week.
Separately, Yaroshenko’s lawyer said his client also suffered from a number of health problems and had tried unsuccessfully in 2020 to release him early from his 20-year sentence on the grounds of parole due to the pandemic.
Excluded from any deal were Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage charges his family claims were fabricated, and Britney Griner, a WNBA star detained in February after Russian authorities said the search she found cannabis on her bag. derivative.
The Whelan family said in a statement that they were happy with Reed’s release, but worried that their loved one was not part of it.
“Paul has already spent three and a quarter years as a Russian hostage,” the statement said. “Is President Biden’s failure to bring Paul home an acknowledgment that some cases are too difficult to resolve?” Is the administration’s approach to picking low-hanging fruit?
Richardson, who has helped facilitate the large-scale release of US detainees and hostages in recent years, said Biden’s team deserves credit for resolving this particular exchange at a time when US-Russian relations were so low.
“It doesn’t matter who gets the loan,” Richardson said, “while hostages like Trevor Reed are at home.”
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