Finally it happened.
Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko managed to get out of an American prison.
He sat there for 12 years - in May 2010, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agents captured him in the African country of Liberia, from where he was deported to the United States.
In September 2011, "the most democratic court in the world" sentenced Konstantin to 20 years in prison on charges of smuggling Colombian cocaine - however, the only evidence that supported this charge was the testimony of a secret DEA informant who lured Yaroshenko to Africa.
The arrest itself was accompanied by numerous violations of the law: firstly, the so-called Mansfield Amendment was ignored, which prohibited American officials from making drug arrests abroad, and secondly, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations was flagrantly violated.
For almost a month, the US authorities did not notify the Russian consulate of his arrest - the Americans tried to explain this amazing “forgetfulness” by saying that the State Department allegedly sent a notice “to the wrong embassy”, “just pressed the wrong button on the fax”, but the Russian Foreign Ministry bluntly stated that "in fact, we are talking about the abduction of a Russian citizen on the territory of a third country."
In prison, Yaroshenko was tortured - he was starved, beaten, as a result of which he lost several teeth, he was not provided with medical care, and was denied a visit to the Russian consul.
Under such conditions, Konstantin had little chance of being released in 2031 alive or, in any case, healthy.
Unlike Yaroshenko, Trevor Reid, a former Marine from Texas, was convicted by a Russian court of a very specific offense - the use of violence against government officials.
The story that happened to Reed is banal: in August 2019, at a party at his fiancee's girlfriend, the former Marine went over vodka, began to quarrel and behave ugly.
The girls called the police, the squad took the American to the police station, but along the way he began to grab the driver by the hands, and the second guard drove his elbow into the solar plexus.
At the same time, Reid himself was so drunk that he does not remember his “feats”, but, as you know, intoxication is not a circumstance mitigating guilt.
And for the use of violence against police officers in Russia, they are punished severely - however, no more severely than in the United States, where you can sit down for up to 15 years for this.
Generally,
He did not sit comfortably there.
From time to time, the American went on hunger strikes, protesting the administration for the unfair, in his opinion, disciplinary measures that were applied to him.
He stated that he was infected with tuberculosis (not confirmed), that he was coughing up blood, that his rib was broken.
When Trevor announced another hunger strike, his parents, who firmly believe that their son will be rotten by the evil Russians in the Gulag, staged a protest near the White House.
After that, they were honored with an audience by the President of the United States himself - the meeting with Biden, according to Reed, lasted more than half an hour and "infused them with optimism."
It happened on March 31, and on April 27 it became known that Trevor Reid was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko on neutral territory, in Turkey.
It's a little insulting, of course, that a Russian pilot served 12 years in an American prison, and an American marine in our colony less than three years (including the year spent in a pre-trial detention center).
But the main thing is that for Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was captured by the Americans in Africa back in 2010, the long-term nightmare has finally ended.
The main thing is that he returned home to his family, hugged his wife and daughter.
Commenting on the return of Yaroshenko to his homeland, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky recalled that the issue of prisoner exchange was discussed back in June last year at a meeting of Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joseph Biden in Geneva.
“I’m sure it’s not our fault that the issue was resolved for so long,” Slutsky stressed.
Indeed, the issue of Yaroshenko's extradition was raised more than once - even under Trump, who, perhaps, would have been glad to make such a grand gesture, but was afraid that he would again be called "Putin's agent."
But Biden, who did not seem to be threatened by the accusation of working for the Kremlin, was in no hurry to release the Russian pilot - ten months passed between his meeting with Putin in Geneva and the meeting with Reid's parents in the White House.
Why now?
There are two reasons, it seems to me.
The first is on the surface.
Biden's rating has reached a historic low - according to recent polls by Quinnipack University, 33% of Americans approve of the activities of the President of the United States.
Not only is this not enough, it is disastrous for Democrats ahead of the midterm congressional elections.
And frankly, there are few opportunities to raise the inexorably falling rating of the Washington administration.
The beautiful liberation of the "heroic" marine from the Siberian (well, no one, in fact, will figure out where she is, this Mordovia!) camps is one of these few options.
Therefore, the president's PR people used the chance that fell to them to the fullest.
“Today we welcome Trevor Reed home and celebrate his return to a family that missed him so much,” Joe Biden said in a statement.
- Trevor, former US Marine, released from custody in Russia.
I heard in the voices of his parents how much they worry about his health and miss him.
And I was happy to share with them the good news that Trevor is free."
And Trevor's mother, Paula Reid, told CNN that their family is "very grateful" for Biden's efforts and that they spoke with the president on the phone after Trevor's release.
In general, the benefits received by Biden from the return of Reed home are quite obvious - and it is possible that opinion polls will show an increase in his rating by two or three points in the near future.
Therefore, the words of the American president that "the negotiations that allowed us to return Trevor home required difficult decisions" must be taken with a certain skepticism.
But the desire to save the rapidly fading popularity of the owner of the White House is only one of the reasons for the current exchange.
There is also a second one.
Relations between the US and Russia are deteriorating more and more, and if before February 24, 2022 they could be called Cold War 2.0, now it is already quite a hot conflict: American mercenaries are fighting the Russian army in the Donbass, Washington is supplying Kyiv with more and more weapons, including the M142 HIMARS missile systems, capable (in theory, at least) of finishing off from the Sumy and Chernihiv regions to Moscow, and US Secretary of State Blinken is seriously discussing the possibility of including Russia in the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
The funnel of escalation makes the normalization of relations almost impossible, and further deterioration more than real.
And the narrowing window of opportunity is forcing Washington to rush - after all, Trevor Reed is not the only American serving a prison sentence in the vast expanses of Russia.
In the Mordovian colony No. 17, another marine is languishing, the owner of several passports (USA, Ireland, Canada, Great Britain) and an employee of the DIA (military intelligence) of the United States, Paul Whelan.
This gentleman was very interested in the data of applicants studying at the higher educational institution of the FSB.
But, like the spy from Vysotsky's song, he was "neutralized and even he was tonsured and imprisoned": the court assessed his unhealthy interest at 16 years of strict regime.
And in February 2022, basketball player Brittney Griner was detained at Sheremetyevo - customs officers found drugs in her luggage.
For this, Greiner faces a very real term - and although the American has not yet been sentenced, Washington is aware that if relations between our countries continue to worsen, it will be very, very difficult to get her out of the "Siberian Gulag".
Therefore, Biden, in his statement, emphasized that the priority for his administration is the return home of other Americans "taken hostage and illegally detained abroad."
"We won't stop," Biden said, "until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving embrace of family and friends."
Here, the interests of the United States and Russia paradoxically coincide.
Because there are also a lot of our compatriots in American prisons who got there on trumped-up charges and are kept in inhuman conditions.
I must say that there are significantly more of them than the American "prisoners" with us - according to Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia, no more than two dozen Americans are kept in Russian prisons, while in the United States they are behind bars from 500 to 800 of our fellow citizens.
But there is a man among the prisoners of the American penitentiary system, whose name was often heard in conjunction with the name of Konstantin Yaroshenko.
It is high time to return to the Motherland the patriot of Russia, the military pilot Viktor Bout, glorified by Hollywood in the image of the "Lord of War" from the film of the same name.
Arrested in 2008 in Bangkok (where, like Yaroshenko, he was also lured to Liberia by DEA agents), he was deported to the United States with gross violations of both Thai and American laws and in 2012 was sentenced there to 25 years in prison. conclusions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the Bout case unfounded, biased and politically ordered and promised to take measures to return him to Russia.
Even the judge Shira Sheindlin herself, who sentenced Bout, admitted, having already retired, that her verdict was "excessive and inappropriate."
But more than ten years have passed (and all 14 since the arrest in Thailand), and Bout is still behind bars.
Now, after the exchange of Yaroshenko for Reed, the exchange of Bout for the same Whelan seems quite real.
But it is desirable to do this before the fragile bridges that still connect Russia and America collapse completely.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.