After spending more than 11 months in a Russian jail, Mr. Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison, the first time that such a severe punishment had been applied for that type of crime, his lawyers said. During one hearing, Mr. Reed said that the case against him was political and linked his troubles in Russia to his military affiliation.
While in a penal colony in the Russian republic of Mordovia, Mr. Reed was subjected to degrading treatment, including time in a solitary cell, his family has said in statements. His health rapidly deteriorated, his family said, and he was not allowed to call home or to receive books or letters, prompting him to begin a hunger strike in November.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
Card 1 of 3Gas supplies. Gazprom, Russia’s state-run gas company, announced it was cutting off supplies of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria, in apparent retaliation against European sanctions and aid for Ukraine.
Explosions in the border regions. Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova on Ukraine’s western flank, was struck by explosions that Ukraine said were carried out by Russia as a pretext to invade Ukraine from that side. Local officials in three Russian districts bordering Ukraine later reported overnight blasts, raising the specter of broader conflict spilling beyond Ukraine’s borders.
A joint effort. The United States gathered military leaders from 40 countries in Germany to discuss military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and later announced the formation of the Ukraine Contact Group, which will have defense ministers and military chiefs from participating countries hold regular meetings to react to the changing nature of the war.
Mr. Reed’s family said in a statement on Wednesday that they would now concentrate on “the myriad of health issues brought on by the squalid conditions he was subjected to in his Russian gulag.”
Mr. Yaroshenko, 53, is a Russian pilot who worked occasional jobs in Africa. In 2010, he was detained and charged in connection with a foiled plot to fly cocaine to Liberia and Ghana from South America. The American authorities said that he had done so with the knowledge that some of the drugs would wind up in the United States.
Mr. Yaroshenko, who had never before set foot in the United States, was deported to the country to stand trial in 2011 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Mr. Yaroshenko’s case has been cited by Russian politicians and pro-Kremlin media as a prime example of the brazen use of extraterritorial powers by the United States. The Russian authorities claimed that Mr. Yaroshenko had been “kidnapped” by the United States, and his family has complained that Mr. Yaroshenko was ill-treated in his Connecticut prison.
Russia has also been seeking the release of Viktor Bout, who was convicted by an American court of arms dealing and sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison.