Moment Russia handed over jailed ex-Marine Trevor Reed in exchange for convicted drug smuggler

Russia has handed over former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who was arrested in 2019, for a convicted drug smuggler who had been imprisoned in Connecticut. 

Dramatic video from the Financial Times, described as ‘real bridge of spies Cold War vibes,’ depicted the scene on Wednesday as U.S. and Russian officials met on a runway in Turkey to conduct the prisoner swap between Reed, 30, and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal prison sentence. 

Reed is seen stepping out of the plane with Russian officials as they appear to brief him on the situation before making their way to the center of the runway, where American officials are waiting. 

Reed is seen carrying a single bag and what appeared to be a manila envelope. 

As the Russian and American agents meet, another agent is seen escorting Yaroshenko directly to the Russian plane as Reed waits while the officials talk.

The Americans and Russians are then seen shaking hands before the U.S. agents escort Reed to their plane. 

Scroll down for video: 

 

Reed, of North Texas, was arrested in the summer of 2019 after Russian authorities said he assaulted an officer while being driven to a police station following a night of heavy drinking.

He was later sentenced to nine years in prison, though his family maintained his innocence – and the U.S. government has described him as being unjustly detained.

Reed was finally released on Wednesday as part of a prisoner exchange, in which US officials agreed to return Yaroshenko, pilot serving at a Connecticut prison for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. after he was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the U.S.

The tense scene was reminiscent of the Steven Speilberg 2015 thriller Bridge of Spies, which depicted the Cold War prisoner exchange of U.S. Air Force pilot Francis Gary Powers and KGB spy Rudolf Abel in Germany in 1962.   

Questions have already arisen about Trevor Reed’s health after footage taken by Russian state media of a historic prisoner exchange showed Russian forces in camouflage and neck garters escorting the 30-year-old out of a dark-colored van Wednesday morning.

They then led Reed by his arms to a private plane nearby as he held a large, dark duffel bag.

In the video, Reed appeared to be much thinner in the video than he was in photos taken before his arrest, with family members reporting that he recently underwent a hunger strike to protest being put in solitary confinement.

His parents, Joey and Paula, now say their ‘prayers have been answered,’ telling CNN New Day host Brianna Keilar: ‘Obviously, we’re ecstatic.’

Joey and Paula Reed revealed that they first received a phone call from the State Department informing them of their son’s imminent homecoming early Wednesday morning – and were actually on the phone with Trevor when the president called.

They said they were still expecting more information from the State Department about when they could see him again, but noted that he had been flown to Turkey from Moscow – where Joey Reed said officers walked him past Yaroshenko ‘like you see in the movies.’

The Reeds also revealed in the interview that their son had been moved to another prison earlier this week in Moscow, and now ‘sounds kind of subdued.’

He is being examined by a doctor on the plane – as his family fears he may have tuberculosis. When they finally can see him again, Paula Reed said she is ‘going to try not to cry,’ and his father said he plans ‘to hug him and not let him go.’ 

They are scheduled to once again meet with President Joe Biden, who told the couple that he would like to have them at the White House upon Trevor’s return – to which Joey Reed said when that happens he and his wife would like to give the president a big hug.

Biden said he would give them a hug, in turn. 

Trevor now plans to spend time reacclimating to American society before he re-enrolls in school in the fall, his parents said.

Reed’s release comes after months of his parents petitioning the Biden administration, and even protesting outside the White House as Reed underwent his hunger strike.

They noted to the president that Reed had served in the Marine Presidential Guard during the Obama administration, protecting the then-president and the current president in his job capacity.

Finally, on Wednesday, the president announced that Reed was free from Russian detention – something he vowed to do for other Americans being held in Russian captivity. 

‘Today, we welcome home Trevor Reed, and celebrate his return to the family that missed him dearly,’ the president announced. ‘Trevor, a former U.S. Marine, is free from Russian detention.

‘I heard in the voices of Trevor’s parents how much they’ve worried about his health and missed his presence. And I was delighted to be able to share with them the good news about Trevor’s freedom.

‘I’m grateful for the tireless and dedicated work of Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens, U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation John Sullivan, and many others across our government to ensure that Trevor came home safely. 

‘The negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly. 

‘His safe return is a testament to the priority my Administration places on bringing home Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained abroad. 

‘We won’t stop until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving arms of family and friends,’ the president said, referring to a Canadian-born American resident who was arrested in Russia in 2018 and was accused of spying.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also tweeted on Wednesday morning: ‘I am pleased that after years of wrongful detention by the Russian government, Trevor Reed has finally been freed and reunited with his family.

‘We thank our partners for their cooperation and help to free Trevor.’ 

Reed was arrested in the summer of 2019, when he was visiting his girlfriend, Alina Tsbulnik, and studying Russian to fulfill his foreign language requirement for college. He was in the process of getting an International Studies degree at the University of North Texas at the time, Spectrum News 1 reports.

But on August 16, just days before he was set to return home to the United States, Reed went out on the town in Moscow, and was arrested. 

‘On the night he was arrested, they were having a party for Lina, and some co-workers in her building,’ Paula Reed previously told Spectrum News. ‘They were toasting, lots of vodka, because they knew Trevor was leaving next week. So he became severely intoxicated.’

From there, she said, the friends got a ride home – but had to pull over once Reed became ill.

‘Then they couldn’t get him back in the car,’ Paula Reed recounted. ‘And one of the other people in the car called the police.’

Russian officials said he grabbed the arm of an officer, as he was being taken to the station to be booked, causing the vehicle to swerve and ‘endangering the lives of officers.’

At the time, the U.S. ambassador dismissed the allegation as ‘preposterous’ and noted that video evidence showed no swerving.

Reed’s father then spent 14 months trying to get him out of jail – but in July 2020, he was convicted of endangering the lives of two policemen while drunk.

‘According to our attorneys, basically every rule, every legal procedure that is supposed to be followed was essentially broken,’ Joey Reed said. ‘In Trevor’s case more than they had ever seen.’

Ever since that trial, Reed has been serving time at a penal colony in Mordovia, where his family members have said his cell lacked a toilet and he never received any items brought to him by US ambassador John Sullivan.

There, his parents have said, Reed has been continuously punished for small things like not making his bed properly, according to ABC News.

‘During the day, because the room has no real heating and there’s cracks in the windows, you see your breath all day long. He coils up on the floor next to a hot water pipe to stay warm and then he’s given violations for laying on the floor during the daytime,’ Joey Reed has said. 

And in June 2021, Tsybulnik reported that he had contracted COVID-19 while in prison, and had to be brought to the hospital.

‘We have no opportunity to pass medicines to him, and we also don’t know what kind of aid he receives there,’ she was quoted as saying to the Tass news agency, according to the Financial Times. 

More recently, Reed went on a hunger strike to protest being placed in solitary confinement, after his parents said he caught tuberculosis behind bars and was denied ‘meaningful medical care’ for that and a broken rib. 

His parents reported just last month that Reed had been coughing up blood. They said he was moved to a prison hospital for ten days but was then returned to his cell without ‘meaningful medical care beyond an X-ray which was taken incorrectly’, they said.

‘Trevor’s Mordovian lawyer was able to see him (on Tuesday) and confirmed that Trevor began a hunger strike… to protest being sent back to solitary while injured and having TB,’ the parents said in a statement.

Speaking to CNN last month, Joey Reed said: ‘When they brought him back to his prison he said, “I need to go back. I’m still hurt and sick.” And they put him to solitary confinement again, where he had been for most of the last seven months. So he is protesting that. That’s against all Russian regulations and European human rights.’

In the weeks that followed, Reed’s parents sought a private meeting with Biden and administration officials.

On March 8, they demonstrated at a speech the president was giving in Fort Worth, Texas, about helping veterans access better health care.

That same day, a White House official said that the president had called the Reeds afterwards and reiterated ‘his commitment to doing everything he can to bring their son home, to staying in close touch with them through his national security team, and to finding a time to meet in person.’

Then on March 30, they demonstrated outside the White House to ask for a meeting.

Their wishes finally came true that day, when the Reeds discussed their son’s service with the president in a 30-minute meeting.

‘He listened intently to everything we had to say until we were through talking. We couldn’t have asked for more,’ Joey Reed told CNN.

Paula Reed added: ‘We got to get it off our chest, all the things that we’ve been wanting to say to him, and it’s done. We got to say what we wanted to say. He listened intently, and we’re grateful for that.’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden ‘reiterated his commitment to continue to work to secure the release of Trevor, Paul Whelan, and other Americans wrongfully held in Russia and elsewhere, and to provide all possible assistance until they and others are free and returned home to their families who are advocating so passionately for their release.’

Family spokesman Jonathan Franks tweeted that the president was ‘incredibly gracious’ during his Wednesday evening meeting with the Reeds, who said the meeting left them feeling ‘optimistic.’

‘We want to tell him about our son – a little bit that he hasn’t gotten from a report from someone,’ Joey Reed told ABC News before the meeting. ‘Remind him that our son added time to his Marine Corps service so he could be a presidential guard.’ 

The meeting marked the first time US officials had responded to their pleas for a prisoner swap.

Russian officials, meanwhile, had petitioned for years for the release of Yaroshenko, who was arrested in Liberia in May 2010, after undercover agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency uncovered evidence he planned to transport a large batch of cocaine.

According to court records obtained by ABC News in 2019, Yaroshenko was struggling financially at the time, when a colleague – Paddy McKay – said he knew someone who needed help with a big transportation job, and could pay handsomely for it.

Yaroshenko then met with McKay, and the man who identified himself as Nabil Habi in Kyiv in March 2010, when Hagi told Yaroshenko he could make millions of dollars if he agreed to help transport a large shipment of cocaine that would be coming from South America into Liberia.

Most of the drugs would be going to other destinations in Africa or Europe, but some would be headed to the United States. 

Two months later, ABC News reports, he traveled to Liberia and met with a now-convicted drug smuggler named Chigo Umeh, who wanted to make the capital city a new major transshipment hub for drugs from South America.

Yaroshenko then agreed to the deal – saying he would transport more than four tons of cocaine from Venezuela to Liberia for $4.5 million and would make an additional $1.2 million to transport more drugs to Ghana, where he was told Hagi would arrange to send them to suppliers in the United States.

He was unaware at the time that McKay and Hagi were undercover informants for the DEA, and they also had their sights on Umeh, and was arrested as he made his transport.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges, describing them as fake, according to Russian news agency TASS, with his attorneys arguing that the US violated international laws and had essentially entrapped Yaroshenko – claiming the DEA recruited him for illegal activity and purposely made mention of a portion of the drugs going to the US just so the involvement of American law enforcement and courts would be justified.

Prosecutors, though, countered that Yaroshenko agreed to participate in the drug smuggling operation, and was aware that some of the drugs were destined for the US – putting him in American legal jeopardy.

They wrote in the court documents obtained by ABC News: ‘Yarashenko carried out these activities with reckless disregard for the individuals and communities that would be harmed by these drugs, with utter indifference to the amount of power and funding this activity was funneling to various dangerous groups in the Americas and elsewhere.’

Yaroshenko was ultimately convicted in April 2011, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He appealed the case, but lost that as well.

By 2017, Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova officially requested that then-President Donald Trump pardon him. She announced one year later that the US government refused.

Then in 2020, his lawyer, Alexei Tarasov, said he had pleaded with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to free him due to the threat of COVID-19.

He was scheduled to be released in October 2027, but overnight, the US Bureau of Prisons updated its website overnight to reflect that Yaroshenko was no longer in custody.

Wednesday’s prisoner swap marks the highest-profile release during the Biden administration of an American deemed wrongly detained abroad and comes even as families of detainees who have met over the last year with administration officials had described them as cool to the idea of an exchange.

In a statement, the Reed family thanked President Joe Biden ‘for making the decision to bring Trevor home’ as well as other administration officials and Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations whom the family said traveled to Moscow in the hours before the Ukraine war began in hopes of securing Reed’s release.

Reed was one of several Americans known to be held by Russia, including WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was detained in February after authorities said a search of her bag revealed a cannabis derivative, and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan, who is being held on espionage-related charges his family says are bogus. 

It was unclear what if any impact Wednesday’s action might have on their cases.

Source: Daily Mail