Russia and USA surprisingly exchange prisoners

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Trevor Reed in a Moscow prison (July 2020 photo)

Photo: DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP

Relations between Russia and the United States have been at their worst in a long time since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Now both countries have surprisingly agreed on a prisoner exchange.

This was announced by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

US President Joe Biden confirmed the exchange shortly thereafter.

Accordingly, Russia has released the American Trevor Reed and in return received Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was convicted in the USA.

Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the exchange at their summit in Geneva last year.

The United States had repeatedly demanded the release of 30-year-old Reed.

In 2019, he is said to have drunkenly attacked two police officers who had been called to a party in Moscow.

Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison last summer.

He had pleaded not guilty and said he couldn't remember anything.

Russian arms dealer remains in US custody

Reed's family complained that Russian authorities did not allow the US Embassy in Moscow to monitor Reed's health.

He was being held "in a small room with a hole in the floor as a toilet."

Washington must now do everything to "bring him home."

The convict himself in November last year went on a hunger strike.

US Ambassador John J. 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.

The US continues to hold arms dealer Wiktor But captive.

mrc/dpa