A former US Marine who spent more than two years in a Russian prison was injured fighting in Ukraine, the State Department confirmed Tuesday.
Trevor Reed, who was released by Moscow in an April 2022 prisoner swap, has been sent to Germany for the treatment of unspecified injuries incurred while fighting for Ukraine, said Vedant Patel, the State Department spokesman.
Patel stressed that Reed "was not engaged in any activities on behalf of the US government," but had traveled to Ukraine to join the fight on his own.
He said Reed was transported to Germany with the help of a private, non-governmental organization and is currently receiving medical care.
"We have been incredibly clear that traveling to Ukraine, choosing to participate in the fighting there, has a very real risk of capture, of death, of bodily harm, and that continues to be our assessment," Patel said.
Reed was a Texas university student in 2019 when he traveled to Russia with his Russian girlfriend.
He was arrested for assault on law enforcement officers after getting drunk, and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
In April last year Russia released him after the White House negotiated an exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and alleged drug smuggler who was sentenced to 20 years in prison by an American court.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the US government has been "extraordinarily, extraordinarily explicit" in warning citizens "not to travel to Ukraine, let alone participate in fighting."
She said she could not provide an estimate of how many Americans might be volunteering on the side of Ukrainian forces.
Asked if the Reed episode could complicate US efforts to procure the release of other Americans imprisoned -- unjustly, according to Washington -- in Russia, Jean-Pierre said the cases were "separate. They're not the same."
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