After lengthy negotiations, Moscow and Washington have reached an agreement to transfer prisoners. Former Marine Trevor Reid, who served in Russia for nine years, has been transferred to Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko. According to his family and the US government, Reid was wrongly punished.
US President Joe Biden had to make “tough decisions” to secure the release of Trevor Reid. During a meeting in Geneva last June, Biden already discussed the transfer of prisoners with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The announcement of the relocation of new prisoners comes as a surprise, especially given the tense relationship between the two countries due to the war in Ukraine.
Yaroshenko has been imprisoned in the United States since 2010. His name has already been mentioned in the Russian media in reports of possible prisoner exchanges with Americans.
Reid was sentenced in 2020 to nine years in a Russian prison colony. He is accused of violently assaulting two police officers while visiting his girlfriend while intoxicated in Moscow. Family and U.S. officials have always said the allegations against the former U.S. Navy are false.
According to the White House, Reid’s trial was a “ridiculous theater” and his accusations of one day being used as a bargaining chip were fabricated. “The government will continue to work to reunite other Americans still being unjustly imprisoned in Russia with their loved ones,” it said in a statement.
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