Inside the Trevor Reed deal: How he got home
Parents’ tenacity, quiet diplomacy played roles
WASHINGTON – The worst possible moment for bringing Trevor Reed home turned out to be the best.
With U.s.-russian relations at their lowest point in decades, it seemed an improbable time to hope for the release of Reed, a former Marine detained in Russia for almost three years. Yet this week the Biden administration completed the type of transaction it had earlier seemed resistant to, exchanging Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and convicted drug trafficker serving a 20-year prison sentence in Connecticut.
A series of events and considerations in the last two months helped facilitate the swap, including escalating concerns over Reed’s health, a private Oval Office meeting between his parents and President Joe Biden and a secretive Moscow trip by a former diplomat on the cusp of Russia’s war with Ukraine.
“All those three forced the White House to make a decision that they hadn’t made before,” said Mickey Bergman, vice president at the Richardson Center for Global Engagement.
U.S. officials stressed that the negotiations for Reed’s release were narrow in scope, focused squarely on the prisoners and not on Russia’s war and not reflective of any broader diplomatic engagement. But while the timing of the deal was startling, it’s also clear that the groundwork for it had been laid before the conflict had begun.
“I did it,” Biden told reporters Wednesday about the deal. “I raised it
three months ago.”
Just as the war was about to commence, Bergman and his colleague, Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and ex-new Mexico governor, flew to Moscow for a meeting with Russian government officials. It was a continuation of negotiations they’d been having for the release of Reed and another jailed American, corporate security executive Paul Whelan.
They left with the contours in place for the one-for-one swap that ultimately took place.
In Texas, Reed’s parents, Joey and Paula Reed, worried that Russia’s war with Ukraine, and resulting tensions with the U.S., could close off communication channels and prevent any common ground for negotiations. They had meetings with administration officials in the last year, but said they weren’t led to think that a swap was a viable option.
But weeks into the war, the couple did something that got the White
House’s attention.
As Biden traveled to Texas to support veterans, the Reeds stood along the motorcade route in hopes of getting meaningful face-time with the president. That didn’t happen, though he did speak by phone with the couple. Later that month, they arrived in Washington and stood with signs near the White House, hoping again to meet with the president.
This time, they were invited into the Oval Office for a sit-down with Biden and other administration officials. The White House issued a statement that night reiterating its commitment to getting Reed and Whelan home.
Left out of any deal were Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges that his family says are fabricated, and Brittney Griner, a WNBA star detained in February after Russian authorities said a search of her bag revealed a cannabis derivative.