WASHINGTON-
Russia and the United States have carried out an unexpected prisoner swap at a time of high tension, exchanging a Navy veteran imprisoned by Moscow for a convicted Russian drug lord serving a long prison sentence in the United States.
The deal announced by both countries involving Trevor Reed, an American imprisoned for nearly three years, would have been a remarkable diplomatic maneuver even in peacetime. It was all the more surprising because it was made as Russia’s war with Ukraine has brought relations with the US to their lowest point in decades.
The United States, meanwhile, returned Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States after he was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the United States. The Justice Department has described him as “a seasoned international drug trafficker” who conspired to distribute thousands of kilograms of cocaine around the world.
Despite Reed’s release, other Americans remain imprisoned in Russia, including WNBA star Brittney Griner and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan.
The exchange took place in Turkey, Reed’s father, Joey Reed, told CNN.
“The American plane stopped next to the Russian plane and they crossed both prisoners at the same time, just like you see in the movies,” he said.
The swap seemed unlikely to herald a breakthrough between Washington and Moscow. A senior Biden administration official warned that the negotiations focused on a “low-key set of prisoner issues” and did not represent a change in the US government’s condemnation of Russia’s violence against Ukraine.
“When we can have 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 terrible violence in Ukraine,” the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. rules established by the administration.
US President Joe Biden, who met with Reed’s parents in Washington last month, heralded Reed’s release, saying without elaborating that “the negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I don’t take lightly.” The Russian Foreign Ministry described the exchange as the “result of a long negotiation process.”
Reed, a 30-year-old former Marine from Texas, was arrested in the summer of 2019 after Russian authorities said he assaulted an officer while police were driving him to a police station after a night of heavy drinking. . He was later sentenced to nine years in prison, although his family maintained his innocence and the US government described him as unjustly detained and expressed concern about his deteriorating health.
A lawyer for Yaroshenko, who last year requested a reduced prison sentence due to Yaroshenko’s vulnerability to COVID-19, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Wednesday.
Russia had sought Yaroshenko’s return for years while at the same time rejecting pleas from high-level US officials to release Reed, who was approaching his 1,000th day in custody and whose health had recently worsened, according to his family.
A senior US official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, described Reed’s case as one of “top priority” for the Biden administration. His family said Reed’s poor health included symptoms of tuberculosis.
“It was a difficult decision, but we thought it was worth it,” the official said.
Although officials did not say where the transfer took place, in the hours before it happened, commercial flight trackers identified a plane belonging to Russia’s federal security service flying to Ankara, Turkey. The US Bureau of Prisons also updated its website overnight to reflect that Yaroshenko was no longer in custody.
Reed was on his way back to the US, traveling with Roger Cartsens, the US government’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
“Today, our prayers have been answered and Trevor is safely back in the United States,” Reed’s family said in a statement.
The prisoner swap was the most high-profile release during the Biden administration of an American deemed wrongfully detained abroad and came even as families of detainees who met with administration officials over the past year described the officials as indifferent to the idea of an exchange.
The US government generally does not accept such exchanges for fear that it may encourage foreign governments to take more Americans prisoner as a way of extracting concessions and avoiding a possible false equivalence between an American wrongfully detained, which US officials they think it was Reed. – and a duly convicted criminal.
In this case, however, the US decided the deal made sense in part because Yaroshenko had already served a large portion of his prison sentence, which has now been commuted.
The Reed family thanked Biden “for making the decision to bring Trevor home,” as well as other administration officials and Bill Richardson, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, who the family said traveled to Moscow in the hours before the start of the war in Ukraine. hopes of securing Reed’s release.
The Reed family had also been working with a consultant, Jonathan Franks, who has been involved in other high-profile releases, such as the case of Michael White, a Navy veteran released from Iran in 2020.
Reed’s release did not have an immediate impact on the cases of other Americans detained by Russia. Griner, for her part, was arrested in February after Russian authorities said a search of her bag revealed a cannabis derivative. Whelan is being held on espionage-related charges that his family claims are false.
US officials have described Whelan as wrongfully detained, with Biden saying Wednesday that “we will not stop until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving arms of family and friends.”
Reed’s parents demonstrated outside the White House last month in hopes of meeting with the president.
“We think that meeting with the president is what made it happen,” Joey Reed told CNN. “Which is what we had said all along: If we could talk to the president, he is that kind of person.”
When he is reunited with his son, the father said: “I want to hug him and not let him go.”
Reference-www.ctvnews.ca