On Wednesday, a Russian court convicted former US Marine Trevor Reed in absentia, sentencing him to 14 years and six months for allegedly joining the Ukrainian army as a mercenary. Reed had previously spent over two years in a Russian prison before being released in a prisoner swap.
According to a statement from Russia’s investigative committee, Reed “voluntarily joined the Ukrainian army as a mercenary on July 25, 2023.” In 2019, while a university student in Texas, he was arrested in Russia for assaulting law enforcement officers while intoxicated and received a nine-year prison sentence.
Reed was released in April 2022 after negotiations by the White House, which secured his freedom in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and drug smuggler serving a 20-year sentence in the US On July 26, 2023, the US State Department reported that Reed had sustained injuries while fighting in Ukraine, specifically in the Donetsk region.
In a related case, a 72-year-old US citizen, Stephen Hubbard, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison on Monday for fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. Hubbard had been in custody for over two years, and his trial was conducted behind closed doors.
Multiple Westerners, including Americans, remain imprisoned in Russia. This includes Ksenia Karelina, a US-Russian national sentenced to 12 years in prison in August for donating approximately $50 to a Ukrainian organization.
Washington accuses Moscow of detaining US citizens to leverage their release in exchanges for Russian agents held abroad. On August 1, Russia and the West executed the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, securing the release of US reporter Evan Gershkovich alongside several Russian opposition figures in exchange for Russian agents, including a convicted killer from Germany.