How Did Russia Manage To Swap Pilot Yaroshenko?*

*Editor’s Note: On March 4, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

Russia succeeded in repatriating the former pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who spent more than 10 years in an American prison and could have served 10 more years. Yaroshenko was swapped for former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed. Moscow has been seeking Yaroshenko’s release for many years. Given its current tensions with the U.S., how has Russia managed to achieve this? Is there any hope of exchanging another Russian prisoner, Victor Bout?

As a result of negotiations, Trevor Reed, a U.S. citizen convicted in Russia, was exchanged for the Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the U.S. The Russian Foreign Ministry informed the mass media about the prisoner swap on Wednesday. “The actual exchange took place at the airport in Turkey,” Yaroshenko’s lawyer, Aleksei Tarasov, told the Moskva-24 TV channel. Now Yaroshenko is in Sochi.

Escorted by Russian security service officers, Reed boarded the plane at Vnukovo airport. American President Joe Biden confirmed Reed’s repatriation. However, as a senior White House official said, the exchange “in no way will change our approach to supporting our Ukrainian partners and to holding the Kremlin accountable for its actions in Ukraine.” There were no other topics addressed during the negotiations concerning the prisoner swap.

Yaroshenko’s lawyer, Tarasov, told TASS that there were doubts that the exchange would take place until the very last moment. Arrangements for the prisoner swap were finalized only last week. The lawyer described the exchange as an Easter miracle.

“Yaroshenko’s repatriation is an undeniable victory of Russian diplomacy. Moreover, this victory came despite all the current political tensions, increasing Russophobia, global hostility toward Russia, and growing international turbulence,” State Duma representative Maria Butina told Vzglyad. One should bear in mind that the interviewee had her own experience with American justice and its penitentiary system. Four years ago, Butina, who was a public activist at that time, was arrested in the U.S. and accused of working as an “unregistered foreign agent.” In April 2019, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Having served a portion of her sentence, she was deported to Russia.

The fact that Moscow has managed to resolve such a complicated issue as the release of Yaroshenko, who was convicted in 2011, “is the result of long negotiations,” Butina emphasized. In addition, she stated, “There is no doubt that a public uproar has played a tremendous role in this because it was the mass media who have continually reported that Yaroshenko was framed. Russian parliamentarians have also been a great help in this regard. For example, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, has been paying for Yaroshenko’s lawyer from the very beginning. Finally, my foundation has been helping Yaroshenko’s wife, Victoria. Everyone was trying to help his family.”

Let us remind our readers that 53-year-old Yaroshenko is a former civil aviation pilot, who worked under contract in several African countries, where he was engaged in cargo and passenger transportation. In 2010, he was arrested by the Liberian intelligence service and handed over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Yaroshenko was accused of a conspiracy to bring several tons of cocaine into the U.S. According to the DEA, the drugs were to be transported from Latin America to Liberia and then to Ghana, from where some of the drugs were to be delivered to the U.S. through a diplomatic pouch. Yaroshenko pleaded not guilty. In 2011, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a New York state court.

Russia claimed that Liberia violated international law by extraditing a Russian national to the U.S. The Russian consul in New York, Igor Golubovsky, was allowed to visit the prisoner only in February 2014 after he had filed three official requests. At that time, Golubovsky stated that Yaroshenko “looked very unwell.” He suffered from a severe infectious viral disease. According to Golubovsky, Yaroshenko complained that he was tortured, beaten and denied medical treatment during the investigation.

Moreover, according to Yaroshenko, he was forbidden to mention the torture at trial.

He repeatedly appealed to the Russian authorities for help. In 2014, Yaroshenko wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin. He asked the Russian leader to raise the question of his immediate repatriation during Putin’s talks with former U.S. President Barack Obama.

In January 2016, after an unscheduled surgery, Yaroshenko’s health deteriorated. In May of the following year, Tatyana Moskalkova, commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation, sent an appeal to Donald Trump, asking him to pardon Yaroshenko. In July 2017, Yaroshenko appealed to the former U.S. president to repatriate him to Russia. “My appeal to Donald Trump is my last chance to return home in my right mind,” he said at that time.

The prisoner on the other end of the swap, Trevor Reed, a 28-year-old U.S. citizen, is a former Marine who came to Russia on a tourist visa to meet his Russian fiancée whom he met online. In 2019, he was arrested in Moscow for assaulting police officers. According to law enforcement officials, Reed was drunk when the incident occurred. After 11 months of detention, Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison. He claimed that the case against him was clearly political, arguing that his military past was the reason for such a harsh sentence. U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan described Reed’s trial as “a theater of the absurd.”

“Quite curiously, both Reed and Yaroshenko were to serve another seven years in prison. I believe this helped both countries to reach an agreement. And in the end, we see that Russia has successfully traded one prisoner for another,” American political scientist Malek Dudakov said.

“The exchange that took place may seem unexpected in the light of the growing tensions between Russia and the U.S., but you have to understand that such negotiations always take a long time to prepare. I believe the negotiations had been going on for at least several months prior to the current crisis in Ukraine. Therefore, it is simply a coincidence that everything has been resolved only now,” Dudakov stated.

“It is important to understand that, after all, U.S-Russia relations are extremely multifaceted. Thus not every connection has been severed. The prisoner swap was a good deal for both Russia and the U.S. This is why one can only hope that similar exchanges will also be possible,” Dudakov added.

“Russia has been in bilateral contact with the U.S. since the Cold War. Other countries have no influence over these contacts, which is beneficial for both nations. Today, amid rising international tensions, it is important to be engaged in a productive dialogue. Prisoner swaps can facilitate this dialogue. There is no doubt whatsoever that Russia won’t abandon its own people. The fate of every citizen is important to us,” Butina stated.

According to her, it is too early to say that Yaroshenko’s release has the potential to ease tensions between the U.S. and Russia. “If the U.S. is willing to exchange another Russian citizen, Viktor Bout, who is currently serving time in a U.S. prison, that would be a definite sign of American intentions to ease the current tensions,” Butina added.

Earlier, Maria Yarmush, an expert in civil and international law, told RT that there was hope that the U.S. would consequently release Bout, who was convicted on arms trafficking charges.

“It is quite possible that Russia will manage to swap Bout because Yaroshenko’s release has already created a precedent. Besides, Russia doesn’t mind trading another American prisoner, Paul Whelan, for Bout. However, the arms trafficking charges against Bout are more serious than those against Yaroshenko. Given the context of the special military operation in Ukraine, arms trafficking is obviously a toxic subject that could complicate further prisoner exchange negotiations,” Dudakov noted.

It should be noted that Paul Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security prison in 2020. He was accused of attempting to obtain a list of Russian special services personnel from one of the Federal Security Service’s units. The former Marine pleaded not guilty.