{"id":1455295,"date":"2022-04-27T09:59:57","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T13:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1455295"},"modified":"2022-04-27T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T14:00:00","slug":"russia-releases-captive-former-marine-trevor-reed-in-prisoner-swap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/russia-releases-captive-former-marine-trevor-reed-in-prisoner-swap\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Releases Captive Former Marine Trevor Reed in Prisoner Swap"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frussia-releases-captive-former-marine-trevor-reed-in-prisoner-swap%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1455295&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>By Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014American Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine detained since 2019, was released from detention in Russia in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the United States, both countries said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The surprise swap, which U.S. officials have said was the result of months of hard and careful work, comes at a time when ties between the United States and Russia have been at their worst in decades over Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">Reed<\/span>, 30, from Texas, was on his way to be reunited with his family in the United States, senior Biden administration officials told reporters in a call, adding that he was in &#8220;good spirits.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed<\/span>\u2018s release and said they were working to free another U.S. citizen held in Russia, Paul Whelan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">Trevor<\/span>, a former U.S. Marine, is free from Russian detention,&#8221; Biden said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">Reed <\/span>was convicted in Russia in 2019 of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to Moscow. The United States has called his trial a &#8220;theater of the absurd.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Russia had proposed a prisoner swap for Yaroshenko in July 2019 in exchange for the release of any American national. Yaroshenko is a pilot convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the country. He was arrested by U.S. special forces in Liberia in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>The talks that led to<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed<\/span>\u2018s release strictly focused on securing his f<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">reed<\/span>om and was not the start of a broader diplomatic conversation, senior administration officials said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re strictly limited to these topics, the detainee topics. They were not part of broader diplomatic discussions. They were not the beginnings of discussions on other issues,&#8221; one of the officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Biden said he had shared the news with<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed<\/span>\u2018s parents, Joey and Paula<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed<\/span>, who have been pressing his administration to help their son.<\/p>\n<p>The<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed<\/span>s thanked Biden and others, saying &#8220;our family has been living a nightmare&#8221; for the past 985 days.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The president&#8217;s action may have saved<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Trevor<\/span>\u2018s life,&#8221; they said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>They said their son would tell his own story as soon as he was ready.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;d respectfully ask for some privacy while we address the myriad of health issues brought on by the squalid conditions he was subjected to in his Russian gulag,&#8221; they said.<\/p>\n<p>Biden did not comment on details of the release, but said, &#8220;The negotiations that allowed us to bring<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Trevor <\/span>home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Biden met with<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed<\/span>\u2018s parents at the White House on March 30. In a statement the following week, the parents said that a prisoner swap seemed to be the only way to bring<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed <\/span>home in the short term and urged the White House to take all possible steps to bring home their son.<\/p>\n<p>Biden said his administration has put a priority on bringing home Americans wrongfully detained abroad and that &#8220;we won&#8217;t stop until Paul Wheland and others join<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Trevor <\/span>in the loving arms of family and friends.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whelan is a former U.S. Marine held in Russia on spying charges that he denies and that he has likened to a political kidnapping.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, American basketball player Brittney Griner has been held nearly two months in Russia and faces up to 10 years in prison. Griner was detained at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17 when a search of her luggage allegedly revealed multiple cannabis oil vape cartridges, which could result in a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Russian news agencies reported on April 4 that<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed <\/span>had ended a hunger strike and was being treated in his prison&#8217;s medical center. The prison service said<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Reed <\/span>had gone on hunger strike on March 28 to protest disciplinary action against him.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">Reed<\/span>\u2018s parents said at the time he had been exposed to an inmate with active tuberculosis in December, but their son had not been tested for the illness despite a rapid deterioration in his health. The prison service said at the time he had repeatedly tested negative for tuberculosis and had not come into contact with anyone infected.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis, Doina Chiacu,<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\"> Trevor <\/span>Hunnicutt in Washington; editing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham and Chizu Nomiyama)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014American Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine detained since 2019, was released from detention in Russia in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1455295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}