>>16168702 pb
Not sure how much this really matters, but it seems like this prisoner exchange is a Russian/US spook exchange.
Interesting that a US Marine, who just so happened to be Joe Biden's bodyguard one time (US Marine Presidential Guard), goes on to school after leaving the Marines to learn Russian, and then goes off and gets arrested in Russia. Those Marine Guards are around intelligence officers all the time…
Also, interesting is that there is another former Marine currently being held by the Russians: "Paul Whelan, a US citizen and former Marine who was detained at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 and arrested on espionage charges, which he has consistently and vehemently denied."
Reed was exchanged for a Russian guy named "Yaroshenko is a pilot who had been detained in Liberia by undercover US Drug Enforcement Agency agents on May 28, 2010, and brought to the US. [US DEA detains Russian drug smugglers in Liberia? Sure thing. And then he's held in a Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, for drug smuggling in Liberia.]
Coincidentally, a US basketball star Brittney Griner remains detained in Russia after she was arrested in February on allegations of drug smuggling.
Again, a US basketball star decides to become a drug smuggler, and goes to Russia to do it? Doesn't make a lot of sense does it when there's plenty of drug smuggling to do in the US, where it's completely safe. Tit for tat - comms between spook agencies, I say, about the whole drug smuggling cover story.
Interesting that a Spy swap would happen in the middle of a proxy war, but I guess prisoner swaps are a thing. Just for political points? Nobody really wants to talk about it too much though.
Asked by CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday whether he had been surprised by Reed's release given Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Biden said: "I did it." The President, pressed on how, continued, "I raised it," adding, "Three months ago."
Pressed on whether Russia was able to extract any other conditions from the US aside from a one-to-one prisoner swap, Psaki told CNN, "There were no other conditions that I'm aware of," later adding, "This was about one issue and topic and I don't think we should read into it further."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/trevor-reed-russia/index.html