The president of United States, Joe Biden confirmed this Wednesday the release of the American Trevor Reed, who had been detained in Russia since 2019in a prisoner exchange with Moscow.
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This was indicated by Biden in a statement in which he announced that Reed was “free” after his three years of detention in Russia.
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“The negotiations that brought Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not make lightly. His safe return is testament to the priority my Administration places on bringing home Americans taken prisoner and wrongfully detained abroad,” he said. Biden in a note released by the White House.
In counterpart, Washington released Russian citizen Konstantin Yaroshenko, in prison since 2010 after receiving a 20-year prison sentence for drug trafficking in the United Statesconfirmed in a senior official of the Biden Government in a call with journalists.
Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko was swapped for former US Marine Trevor Reed, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “After long negotiations, this April 27, the exchange of the American Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko took place” pic.twitter.com/11sscyJtfB
— RA (ЧАМОСАУРИЮ) ريكاردو عب (@Chamosaurio) April 27, 2022
The 29-year-old American, a University of North Texas student and former Marine, arrived in Moscow in May 2019 on a tourist visa and was living in his girlfriend’s apartment.
Reed allegedly resisted, while intoxicated, his arrest by the police and assaulted some officers, something that the American has denied.. “Our family has been living through a nightmare. Today our prayers have been answered and
Trevor is safe and on his way back to the US,” his family said in a statement.
Yaroshenko, on the other hand, was arrested in 2010 in Liberia by US secret service agents. Accused of drug trafficking, the authorities took him to the United States, where the justice sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
US President Joe Biden has vowed to do everything possible to free Trevor Reed and other Americans “wrongly detained” in Russia.
The hypothesis of a prisoner exchange had been mentioned several times. Detained in a penal colony in Mordovia, 500 km from MoscowReed had started a hunger strike in November 2021 to protest against their conditions of detention.
The prisoner exchange marks a rare moment of Diplomatic rapprochement in full confrontation between Washington and Moscow over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The US will continue to support Ukraine
It represents no change, zero, to our strategy in the face of the appalling violence in Ukraine.
The United States does not expect any improvement in relations with Russia and will maintain its full support for Ukraine despite the prisoner swap with Moscow announced on Wednesday, a US official said.
“The discussions with the Russians that led to this swap were strictly limited to those matters, not a broader conversation or even the start of one,” he said on condition of anonymity.
The official said the United States had been in discussions with Russia for months despite a sharp deterioration in bilateral relations following Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
He also stressed that Washington will continue to pressure Moscow to release other detained Americans.including Paul Whelan, a former Marine accused of espionage by Russian authorities.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
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