i appreciate you joining us. what s the significance if any people draw from the fact that a prisoner exchange was negotiated now when relations between the united states and russia are at their worse? it is significant. somehow we were able to we insulate the animosity and bad ones signature rounding the russia s invasion of ukraine and still get on the business. it is like a start agreement which is the one remaining arms control agreement which we had with russia. so i think it is on balance is a good thing and hopefully this will at some point lead to full releases. it i think trevor reed s declining
they were quite concerned about that. that s one of the things that drove the urgency of getting h him released. clearly his family iso is overjoyed. overjoyed, every time they got a phone call, they were on pins and needles, hoping it was the call they finally got this morning. one interesting thing here is there is another american who s also wrongfully detained in russia. he was not released today. that s paul wheelen, the family of trevor reed feels really connected. listen to what reed s parents said today about the fact they were so connected to paul wheelen. they didn t know if trevor would leave if wheelen was by his
this is happening and release is happening. i think it is significant to note as you said, anderson, this comes as the ukraine war is raging on. there was not no momentum or talk about this release happening. it was quite surprising when-announced. biden administration was very clear, they pulled this off because they had limited conversations with russia of the specific channel about the release of trevor reed, those conversations did not include anything having to do with the war in ukraine. this will release is not going to change their position when it comes to being critical of russia for that invasion of ukraine. we should also note that trevor reed s health is the key factor. over the last year or so, he had deteriorating health as you mentioned and he had covid-19 last year. he was experiencing symptoms of tuber tuberculosis.
side. we believe at one point before the government started considering this trade, which i think the russians said basically been suggesting a year or two that if they were to take our son and not paul wheelen that our son may refuse to come home. he didn t want to leave another marine there. paul wheelen s family welcoming trevor reed coming back to the united states but concerned about their son and also of course brittney griner, the wnba star, she s still wrongfully detained in russia. anderson. appreciate it. i want to get our perspective on this of this complication between the u.s. and russia. joining us now is cnn s analyst, john clapper.