Who is Trevor Reed? Story of US Marine veteran freed from Russian captivity and injured in Ukraine

The story of the American veteran has been in the media since 2019, but in July 2023, it took a new twist and gained publicity.

What we know about Trevor Reed's injuries in the war in Ukraine

According to Western media sources, after his release and return to the United States from Russia, Trevor Reed volunteered for the war in Ukraine. And in July 2023, he was wounded in one of the battles at the front. The American publication The Messenger was the first to report his injury, noting that the circumstances of his injury were not known for certain.

Some US officials said he may have stepped on a mine, while another reported that he was injured by shrapnel in his legs. However, they do not know the severity of the injuries. Trevor Reed was transferred from a hospital in Kyiv to Germany for treatment with the help of an NGO and without official intervention from the US government.

Instead, The New York Times emphasizes the Biden administration's reaction to Reed's decision to volunteer to fight on the side of Ukraine as “exasperation”, as the United States has repeatedly warned American citizens against traveling to Ukraine and participating in the war, although many of them continue to do so anyway.

"I want to make something clear: Reed was not engaged in any activity on behalf of the US government," said US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel.”

As CNN later reported, Reed was evacuated to Germany by the German NGO MediCare Hubs Kyiv and the Israeli NGO FRIDA Ukraine. And now his treatment is going well, the publication cites its source.

According to CNN, Reed first came to Ukraine on November 1, motivated by his own imprisonment in Russia and what he saw with his own eyes and experienced firsthand the attitude of the Russians.

"After Reed's unit successfully pushed back Russian troops and recaptured about 2 km of land near Bakhmut, Reed was wounded along with other members of his unit, the source said. Contrary to what US government sources told another media outlet, Reed did not step on a mine. He was wounded by shrapnel that hit both his legs," the media outlet writes.

While Trevor Reed is recovering from his injuries and hopes to return home soon, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has allayed fears that Reed's actions could affect negotiations for the release of other Americans.

“So my expectation is that even as we’re dealing with all sorts of other challenges in our relationship with Russia, we will and we are determined to continue to work to bring both Evan and Paul home,” Blinken said (referring to Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan).

Former US Marine Trevor Reed

Photo: gettyimages

Who is Trevor Reed and how did he end up in Russia?

Reed is a former US Marine. He is an eighth-generation Texan who was born in Fort Worth.  He grew up in Tehachapi, California, where he graduated from high school. After high school, Trevor moved to Texas to attend college.

He later joined the US Marine Corps in 2011. Reed was a Marine in the Presidential Guard. During the Obama administration, he was assigned to guard then-Vice President Joe Biden at Camp David. In 2016, he was discharged and after his service, he entered the University of North Texas.

This information can be found on a website set up by his family when they needed to call for Reed's release from Russia.

In 2019, Reed traveled to Moscow to visit his girlfriend Lina Tsybulnik. Here, he was detained by police after Trevor got out of his car on a busy street while intoxicated. Russian police claim, according to USA Today, that Reed grabbed an officer's arm as he was walking to the police station, causing the police car to swerve into another lane. Reed's parents and lawyers have denied the allegation.

"Our lawyers commissioned state experts to analyze the video and issued a large, long report stating that the car never braked or stopped," Reed's father said in an interview with the publication.

Initially, he was promised to be released the next morning after his arrest, but it turned out quite differently. But while he was waiting for the girl to come for him, the police authorities on the next shift decided to detain him. Then agents from Russia's powerful domestic intelligence service, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, arrived and interrogated him.

"The main thing they wanted to know was about my military service," Reed told ABC news. "They didn't ask me at all, not one question about whether I had committed a crime or done anything wrong. They didn't ask me about anything related to that at all. They were primarily interested in my military service."

Trevor Reed was later sentenced to 9 years in a labor camp. He later said that when he was arrested in Moscow in the summer of 2019, he was a healthy student studying international security, weighing 175 pounds (79 kg). By the time he was released, his weight had dropped to 131 pounds (58 kg), he was sick, coughing up blood and fearing he had contracted tuberculosis.

Reed was held in a series of Russian prisons for a long time, thrown into closet-sized isolation cells, placed in a psychiatric hospital and sent to a forced labor camp, which he described as something "out of the Middle Ages".

Former US Marine Trevor Reed

Photo: gettyimages

Release from Russian captivity

When the war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022, the former US Marine thought it meant he would likely never return home. At the time, he had been in a Russian prison for almost three years.

But a few months later, Trevor Reed was home in the United States. He was released on 27 April 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange agreed between the Biden administration and the Kremlin. Reed was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who was sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in prison for his involvement in cocaine smuggling to the United States.

According to Reed in an interview with an American newspaper, on the day of the exchange, 20 FSB agents loaded him onto the plane but did not say anything about the destination. However, when the plane headed south and he saw that he was flying over water, he realized that it must be the Black Sea and that he was heading to Turkey.

"I had a very strong sense of guilt that I was free and Paul Whelan was still in prison. When I found out that it was an exchange, I thought that they probably exchanged Paul Whelan as well. And I expected him to come home with me. But that didn't happen," Trevor Reed recalled.

He is convinced that under any circumstances, the US government should release other prisoners, including Paul Whelan, from captivity.