i love you all. this is cnn breaking news. the breaking news is this, american trevor reed to be released from prison in russia, in a prisoner swap. joining me now is bianna golodryga. trevor reed a marine veteran imprisoned since 2020 on charges his family has always denied. a wonderful development for them. i want to focus on the peculiar nature of where we are. there is a war in ukraine where the u.s. and russia are on different sides and yet negotiations were obviously taking place. yeah, and we re hearing reports that the u.s. ambassador to russia actually flew back to moscow yesterday in anticipation
like this would not happen in a day, it would be the result of weeks, perhaps months of negotiations and the fact that it came to be today in the midst of this war shows that russia and the u.s. at least have diplomatic channels open. and we should note in the past that not all the time, maybe not even oftentimes, but sometimes exchanges like this have because of those openings allowed for discussion of other issues. doesn t mean it happens here. the u.s. still at loggerheads with russia. the fact it took place in the midst of the war, a war where there has been increasingly volatile rhetoric from russia, even about threats of nuclear conflict and so on is notable. as i said at the beginning, first and foremost, about the freedom of a young american, a marine veteran, imprisoned under as you were describing, john, at best questionable circumstances. he was imprisoned according to the russian for endangering the safety of russian police
charges, he ended up in prison, not treated well there, and, by the way, this is a tactic that russia and countries such as iran have used before, pick up americans on trumped up charges or false charges to create capital to exchange potentially down the line for russian citizens, which is what happened here. now, there is a long history of that and it is frankly one way to get americans to safe out of a country such as russia and by the way, russia is now confirming this transfer as well. statement from russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said this on telegram, as a result of a lengthy negotiation process, u.s. citizen trevor reed previously convicted in the russian federation, she says, was exchanged for russian citizen konstantin yurchenko. his history here goes back more than a decade. he was brought in in a dea investigation for being involved in trafficking and drugs. different circumstances from trevor reed. but i would like to repeat a point i mentioned when we were
than two months. take a look. there is no rest at night for the people of kharkiv. flares light up the sky as artillery thunders through the air. for nearly nine weeks, ukraine s second largest city has been shelled relentlessly. only by day will you see the full scale of the destruction. this neighborhood was hit repeatedly last month as russian forces tried to push into the city. no site was spared, not even the local nursery school. so looks like this was some kind of a dormitory. you can see children s beds here, all around. and then in the next door room over there was their classroom. their shoes still litter the locker room.
and others join trevor in the loving arms of family and friends. there are still many details that need to be filled out. but this comes as president biden just last month had met with the parents of trevor reed here at the white house after they had been protesting outside. he also encountered them when he traveled to texas in early march, and the family had been waiting outside an event, the president was unable to stop to speak to them, but he did extend a phone call to them at that time and then met with them here at the white house. now, just a few weeks ago, in early april, white house press secretary jen psaki was asked about the possibility of any prisoners returning from russia to the united states. she said those negotiations would not be broadcast in the press. they were always working with the priority of bringing trevor reed and others home back here to the united states, so we will see what further developments the white house is able to provide over the course of the day