WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - American Trevor Reed, a former US Marine detained since 2019, was released from Russian detention on Wednesday (April 27) in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the United States, Russia's foreign ministry said.
US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed Mr Reed's release and said they were working to free another US citizen held in Russia, Paul Whelan.
"Trevor, a former US Marine, is free from Russian detention," Mr Biden said in a statement.
Mr Reed, 30, from Texas, was convicted in Russia in 2019 of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to Moscow. The US has called his trial a "theatre of the absurd". Mr Biden said he had shared the news with Mr Reed's parents, Joey and Paula Reed, who have been pressing his administration to help their son.
The Reeds thanked Mr Biden and others, saying "our family has been living a nightmare" for the past 985 days.
"The President's action may have saved Trevor's life," they said in a statement.
They said their son would tell his own story as soon as he was ready.
"We'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," they said.
Mr Biden did not comment on details of the release, but said: "The negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly".
Russia had proposed a prisoner swop for Mr Yaroshenko in July 2019 in exchange for the release of any American national.
Mr Yaroshenko is a pilot convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the country. He was arrested by US special forces in Liberia in 2010.
Mr Biden said his administration has put a priority on bringing home Americans wrongfully detained abroad and that "we won't stop until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving arms of family and friends".
Whelan is a former US Marine held in Russia on spying charges that he denies and that he has likened to a political kidnapping.
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.
