The swap occurred on Wednesday as a result of a long negotiation process, the Russian Foreign Ministry says
US national Trevor Reed, sentenced to nine years’ jail in Russia in 2020, has been exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been serving a 20-year sentence in a US prison since 2010, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday.
Russian diplomats told journalists that the swap was the result of a “lengthy negotiation process.”
Yaroshenko’s wife Viktoria told Izvestia news outlet that her husband had been handed over to Russian officials in Turkey. She added that the freed inmate was now in Sochi, a Russian coastal city on the Black sea.
Meanwhile, Reed was escorted to Vnukovo airport near Moscow and flew back to the US from there, according to Russia’s Rossiya 24 news channel.
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