Given the strained relations between the two countries, the exchange comes as a surprise.
(Photo: Reuters)
Moscow Russia and the US have surprisingly carried out a long-discussed prisoner swap. Russia released American Trevor Reed and received Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been convicted in the United States, as the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday.
US President Joe Biden confirmed Reed’s release in Washington. Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the exchange at their summit in Geneva last year. In view of the tense relations between the two countries, whose relationship has been drastically aggravated by the Ukraine war, this development is unexpected.
The United States had repeatedly demanded the release of 30-year-old Reed. He was sentenced to nine years in a prison camp in July 2020 – for allegedly assaulting police officers and resisting Russian state authority while drunk.
The US ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, had criticized the verdict as “absurd theatre”. Reed’s family had also appealed to the US government to do everything possible to get the student released. The Russian pilot Yaroshenko was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States in 2010 for drug smuggling.
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US President is pleased
Biden explained: “Today we welcome Trevor Reed home and celebrate his return to his family, who missed him very much.” The former US soldier is no longer in Russian captivity. He did not give any more details. Biden thanked Sullivan and other US officials for their efforts to secure Reed’s release.
The negotiations had required “difficult decisions”, he stressed and promised that the US government would continue to seek the release of other wrongly imprisoned Americans. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a similar statement.
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