The US and Russia announced on Wednesday a prisoner swap that has freed Trevor R. Reed, a former Marine who was convicted on charges that his family said were bogus, in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot sentenced to a lengthy term in the US on cocaine-trafficking charges.

“Trevor, a former US Marine, is free from Russian detention,” President Biden said in a statement. “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.”

The agreement was the result of “lengthy negotiations”, according to Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry.

Reed’s family confirmed his release in a statement, saying that they would now concentrate on “the myriad of health issues brought on by the squalid conditions he was subjected to in his Russian gulag”.

A native of Texas, Reed travelled to Russia in May 2019 to visit his Russian girlfriend, whom he had met on a dating website, and to take language lessons. One week before his planned return to the US, Reed went to a party at a park outside Moscow, where he drank extensive amounts of vodka.

Reed got agitated, prompting his girlfriend and friends to call the police.

Officers who arrived at the scene decided to take him to the station, where Reed was interviewed by Russian security agents.

Shortly after, he was accused of assaulting and endangering the lives of the two police officers who had driven him there.

After spending more than 11 months in a Russian jail, Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison, the first time that such a severe punishment had been applied for that type of crime, his lawyers said. At one point during a hearing, Reed said that the case against him was political and linked his troubles in Russia to his military affiliation.

Russia cyber attacks

Russian government hackers carried out multiple cyber operations against Ukraine that appeared to support Moscow’s military attacks and online propaganda campaigns, Microsoft said in a report on Wednesday.

The reported intrusions - some of which have not been previously disclosed — suggest that hacking has played a bigger role in the conflict than what has been publicly known. The digital onslaught, which Microsoft said began one year prior to Russia’s invasion, may have laid the groundwork for different military missions in the war-torn territory, researchers found.

New York Times News Service and Reuters