WASHINGTON (AP) – Russia and the United States carried out an unexpected exchange of prisoners during a time of high tensions, trading on Wednesday a Marine veteran convicted by Moscow for a convicted Russian drug trafficker serving a long sentence in America.
The deal with Trevor Reed, an American imprisoned for nearly three years, would have been a remarkable diplomatic maneuver even in peacetime, but it was even more surprising because it was concluded because Russia’s war with Ukraine brought relations with the United States to the United States. their lowest point in decades.
At the other end of the exchange was Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal sentence for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States.
Even as the Biden administration trumpeted the exchange, it made it clear that the resolution did not bode well for a wider breakthrough. Russian forces remain resolute in their attack on Ukraine, the United States and Western allies continue to impose criminal sanctions, while other Americans, including WNBA star Britney Greener and Michigan’s corporate security chief executive Paul Whelan, remain in prison in Russia.
The exchange, the culmination of long-standing demands from both sides, as well as private diplomatic disputes, took place in Turkey when “the two planes essentially stopped next to each other and then exited,” Reed’s father, Joey, said.
“I think we will really strike for him and for us when we finally see and touch him,” he told the Associated Press.
Reed, a 30-year-old former Texas Marine, was arrested in the summer of 2019 after Russian authorities said he attacked an officer while being driven by police to a police station after a night of heavy drinking. He was later sentenced to nine years in prison, although the US government described him as unjustly detained and demanded his release, while his family pleaded not guilty and expressed concern about his deteriorating health – which included coughing up blood and starvation. strike.
Even on Wednesday, his parents’ joy was mitigated by the concern they said they felt about his physical appearance. They were struck by his unsteady gait and how thin he looked as television footage filmed him walking, surrounded by security, from a van to an airplane.
“He just didn’t sound like himself,” Reed’s mother, Paula, said of their brief phone call while on the plane. “We just asked him how he was, and he said, ‘I’m fine.’ But he always says that, even when it’s not.” And he just didn’t sound like his normal self. “
Reed was on his way back to the United States with Roger Cartsens, the US government’s special envoy for hostages.
President Joe Biden, who met with Reed’s parents in Washington last month, welcomed Reed’s release and said in detail that “the negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly.” The Russian government also confirmed the deal, with the foreign ministry describing the exchange as “the result of a long negotiation process”.
A senior Biden administration official warned that the talks focused on a “discreet set of prisoner issues” and did not change the US government’s condemnation of Russian violence against Ukraine.
“Where we can hold discussions on issues of mutual interest, we will try to talk to the Russians and have a constructive conversation, without in any way changing our approach to the horrific violence in Ukraine,” the official told reporters, wishing to remain anonymous. The Earth. rules set by the administration.
Yaroshenko, meanwhile, was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges. The Ministry of Justice describes him as an “experienced international drug trafficker” who conspired to distribute thousands of kilograms of cocaine around the world.
Yaroshenko’s lawyer, who unsuccessfully tried to release his client in 2020 after a compassionate release over the coronavirus pandemic, did not return an email asking for comment on Wednesday.
Russia has been seeking Yaroshenko’s return for years, while rejecting requests from senior US officials to release Reid, who is approaching his 1,000th day in custody after being convicted of what a US official, Ambassador John Sullivan, called “ridiculous.” “Proof.
The prisoner exchange was the most famous release during the Biden administration of an American considered improperly detained abroad, and came even when the families of detainees who met with administration officials last year described officials as cool to the idea. for exchange.
The US government does not normally accept such exchanges. She fears this could encourage foreign governments to take additional Americans captive as a way to get concessions. And it is concerned about the potentially false equivalence between an unjustly detained American – who US officials believe was Reed – and a properly convicted criminal.
In this case, however, the United States decided that the deal made sense in part because Yaroshenko had already served a long part of his prison sentence, which has now been commuted, a senior official told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In a statement, Reed’s family thanked Biden, “for deciding to bring Trevor home,” other administration officials, and Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The family said Richardson had traveled to Moscow in the hours before the war in Ukraine began in hopes of securing Reid’s release.
Reed’s release did not directly affect the cases of other Americans held by Russia. Greener, for example, was detained in February after Russian authorities said a search of her bag revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. Whelan has been arrested on espionage charges that his family is fake.
Biden said Wednesday that “we will not stop until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving embrace of family and friends.” U.S. officials have described Whelan as being unjustly detained, but have not yet described Griner’s case in this way. Whelan was sentenced and sentenced to 16 years in prison; Greener is awaiting trial.
At home in Texas, the Reed family had gained a common sense of progress and had even begun cleaning Trevor’s room in preparation for his return home, removing documents from his bed so he could sleep.
It was a welcome twist a month ago when they demonstrated in front of the White House about their son’s release, then insisted on their case in private with Biden.
“We’ve been saying for more than a year, if we can just talk to the president, that we feel we can make this happen – and that’s exactly what happened,” said Joey Reed.
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