but an adviser to president zelenskyy just said this, quote, sooner or later debts will have to be paid back. that is why disarming the belgorod vor on nez depots is a absolutely natural process. karma is a cruel thing. russia is escalating its economic attacks beyond ukraine into the west. it shut off gas supplies to poland and bulgaria. they ve shut those off because the nations refuse to pay for the gas in rubles. this is significant. both countries rely on russian energy, they are nato members, and both have aided in the ukrainian defense. in the meantime ukraine now admitting it is taking significant losses in the east as the russians are intensifying attacks there in this new strategic bombardment of the area. and in the south a second missile strike overnight on a strategic bridge near odesa, this is actually video from the first strike. new images coming in moments ago showing the damage there, this is a rail and road bridge and it s the only link between the
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 officers after an altercation going back
Covered, going to washington, right to the white house, pleading for help, pleading for prisoner swap like we have seen take place here. trevor reed in exchange for konstantin yurchenko, involved in a dea investigation for drug smuggling. of course, trevor reed first, family first. trevor reed, his time in a russian prison, in addition to not knowing when he would get his freedom, has been difficult. he s had hunger strikes to protest not just his imprison, but treatment there, he had symptoms of tuberculosis, more recently he said he broke a rib, he was not getting proper treatment in prison as well. the ordeal for trevor reed, the ordeal for his family, bigger picture we should note, here are the u.s. and russia who are currently o ly on opposite sidea war, speaking, a prisoner swap
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
all right, the breaking news this morning, frankly, major and wonderful. russia has announced it is releasing american trevor reed, the u.s. marine veteran was sentenced to nine years in prison in july for endangering the life and health of a russian police officer, something he and his family have just denied ever since. he s reportedly being exchanged for a russian citizen who was sentenced to 20 years in prison by an american court in 2010. now, we ll have much more on that in a second. the other breaking news, reports of explosions in three separate areas inside russia, including one, an ammunition depot right here in belgorod. the war in ukraine clearly at this point expanding beyond ukraine s border. there is reason to be wary of these reports, these reports came from russian media, and often the russians try to claim ukrainian attacks to somehow portray themselves as victims.