Ex-Marine Reed back in US after prisoner swap with Russia
Former US Marine Trevor Reed has arrived back in the United States, his spokesperson said on Thursday, after being freed by Russia in a prisoner swap carried out amid fraught relations between the two countries over the war in Ukraine.
Local television reported that Reed, from Texas, arrived in San Antonio early on Thursday. Reed, 30, was released on Wednesday on an airport tarmac in Ankara, Turkey, in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.
The swap was not part of broader diplomatic talks and did not represent an American change in approach on Ukraine, US officials said. Russian-American ties have been at their worst since the Cold War era following Russia's 24 Feb. invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Reed was back in the United States, his spokesperson said without elaborating.
Photos of Reed standing with his family and a Texas congressman at an undisclosed airport were put out in an early morning Twitter post by the lawmaker, August Pfluger.
Reed's parents said earlier he would be taken to a military hospital for monitoring. Senior US officials said on Wednesday Reed was in "good spirits" despite some health issues.
Reed was convicted in Russia in 2019 of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to Moscow. The United States called his trial a "theater of the absurd."
Yaroshenko was arrested by American special forces in Liberia in 2010 and convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States. Russia had proposed a prisoner swap for Yaroshenko in July 2019 in exchange for any American.
Russian news agencies reported that Yaroshenko landed back in Moscow on Wednesday and was reunited with his wife and daughter.
The months of tense diplomacy that led to Reed's release focused strictly on securing his freedom and were not the beginnings of discussions on other issues, senior Biden administration officials said.
Russian news agencies reported on 4 April that Reed had ended a hunger strike and was being treated in his prison's medical center. Reed's parents said at the time that he had been exposed to an inmate with tuberculosis in December. The prison service said Reed tested negative for tuberculosis.
US officials were working to free another American held in Russia, Paul Whelan, 52, also a former Marine, Biden said. Whelan was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges in June 2020.
Whelan's family has issued statements of concern about prospects for his release now that a prisoner who Russia wanted back since 2019 had been exchanged.
"Why was I left behind?" Whelan asked his parents, according to the family's statement.
US basketball star Brittney Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained at a Moscow airport on 17 Feb. when a search of her luggage allegedly revealed multiple cannabis oil vape cartridges. She faces up to 10 years in prison.