WASHINGTON: The US and Russia swapped prisoners yesterday amid their most tense relations in decades over the war in Ukraine, with former US Marine Trevor Reed released in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.
The swap, announced by both countries, was the result of months of work and did not involve negotiations on any other of the sensitive topics involving the US and Russia, US officials said. Russian-American ties have been at their worst since the Cold War era following Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Reed, from Texas, was on his way to be reunited with his family in the US, senior Biden administration officials said, with one saying the 30-year-old was in “good spirits.”
“Today, we welcome home Trevor Reed and celebrate his return to the family that missed him dearly,” President Joe Biden said in a statement, noting their concerns about their son’s health.
Reed was convicted in Russia in 2019 of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to Moscow. The US has called his trial a “theatre of the absurd.”
Russia had proposed a prisoner swap for Yaroshenko in July 2019 in exchange for the release of any American. Yaroshenko is a pilot convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the country. He was arrested by US special forces in Liberia in 2010.
Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they were working to free another US citizen held in Russia, Paul Whelan, also a former Marine.
Biden said he had shared the news with Reed’s parents, Joey and Paula Reed, who have been pressing his administration to help their son. The Reeds thanked Biden and others, saying “our family has been living a nightmare” for the past 985 days.
“The president’s action may have saved Trevor’s life,” they said in a statement.
Biden met Reed’s parents at the White House on March 30. In a statement the following week, the parents said a prisoner swap seemed to be the only way to bring Reed home and urged the White House to take all possible steps to do so.
The talks that led to Reed’s release strictly focused on securing his freedom and were not the start of a wider diplomatic conversation, senior Biden administration officials said in a call with reporters.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said that diplomatic talks with Russia were “at a dead end” despite the releases.
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