Marine veteran freed from Russia in 2022 prisoner swap is injured while fighting in Ukraine, US says

A former U.S. Marine who was released from Russia in a prisoner swap last year has been injured while fighting in Ukraine, the State Department said Tuesday.

Trevor Reed was wounded several weeks ago, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He has been taken to Germany for medical care, said State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.

U.S. officials said little about Reed's injury or presence in Ukraine beyond noting that his activities weren't on behalf of the U.S. government. But Reed's decision to take up arms during Russia's war with Ukraine potentially complicates U.S. efforts to win the release of two other Americans still detained by Moscow, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Novi corporate security executive Paul Whelan.

Whelan, 52, has been in prison in Russia since his arrest at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 and later conviction on espionage charges that he's vehemently denied.

Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence of hard labor at a prison camp in Mordovia. U.S. officials have long labeled his detention "wrongful" and pressed for his release. Like Reed, he traveled to Russia as a tourist, and when Reed was freed, Whelan questioned why more hadn't been done to secure his release.

“Why was I left behind? ... The world knows this charge was fabricated,” he said at the time in a statement released through his parents.

Since then, Whelan has remained in prison while WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was arrested at a Russian airport in February 20022 for bringing less than a gram of cannabis oil in vape cartridges into the country, was the beneficiary of another high-profile prisoner swap.

In going to the battlefield after his release, Reed risked a potentially dire scenario if he'd been captured and returned to Russian custody after the U.S. had worked to get him home.

“As I indicated, we have been incredibly clear warning American citizens, American nationals, not to travel to Ukraine, let alone participate in fighting," Patel said. "As you know, we are not in a place to provide assistance to evacuate private U.S. citizens from Ukraine, including those Americans who may decide to travel to Ukraine to participate in fighting.”

The severity of Reed's injury was not immediately clear, but Patel said he was transported out of Ukraine by a non-governmental organization. He was taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a level II trauma care center located near Ramstein Air Base, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

It's unclear how many Americans have volunteered to fight in Ukraine. But the conflict has attracted fighters from around the world, with Ukrainian authorities saying thousands of volunteers from dozens of countries have joined their cause. Ukraine established an international fighting force just days after Russia's February 2022 invasion.

Reed was released from Russian custody in an April 2022 prisoner swap in exchange for a Russian pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, who’d been serving a 20-year federal sentence for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.

Reed was arrested in the summer of 2019 after Russian authorities said he assaulted an officer while being driven by police to a police station following a night of heavy drinking. He was later sentenced to nine years in prison.

The U.S. government later designated him as unjustly detained and pressed for his release while his family has asserted his innocence. Relatives also were concerned about his deteriorating health. At one point he said he was coughing up blood while in custody. He also staged a hunger strike to protest the conditions under which he was held.

The Messenger was first to report Reed's injury.