US veteran sentenced in absentia to 14 years in Russian prison for mercenary activity

A US Marine Corps veteran whom Russia exchanged in a prisoner swap in 2022 has been found guilty of mercenary activity and sentenced in absentia to 14.5 years in prison, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Wednesday.

Investigators argued that Trevor Reed had voluntarily enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a mercenary in the summer of 2023 and saw active combat in battles against Russian troops. He has now been placed on Russia’s international wanted list.

Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison in July 2020 after being found guilty of attacking traffic police officers in Moscow during a visit to Russia, though he pleaded not guilty to the charges and said that he had been drunk at the time of the incident.

Reed was exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a jail sentence in the US for drug smuggling, in a prisoner swap with the US in April 2022.

On Monday a Moscow court sentenced another US citizen to jail time for “mercenary activity” at the end of a trial that was held behind closed doors. Stephen Hubbard, 72, was handed a sentence of six years and 10 months in a penal colony for joining the Ukrainian military reserve defending the city of Izyum in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region in 2022.