U.S. Marines veteran Trevor Reed lost 45 pounds in Russian prison, but wouldn’t let them break him ‘psychologically’

Trevor Reed went on hunger strikes in a Russian prison. He was sent to solitary confinement after refusing to work at a forced labor camp. He lost 45 pounds. He coughed up blood for months. But he refused to give up his strength.

“To be honest with you, the longer that I was in there, the more dedicated I was to not allowing them to break me,” the Marines veteran told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday night.

“Maybe I would’ve died. But psychologically, they never would’ve broken me.”

Reed spent 985 days behind bars, sentenced to nine years in prison in July 2020 for assaulting a Russian police officer during a drunken visit to Moscow to visit his girlfriend the previous summer. Last month, he was freed in a prisoner swap.

U.S. Marines veteran Trevor Reed ‘wouldn’t let myself hope’ in Russian prison

Trevor Reed, pictured in 2020, was released from a Russian prison last month. (ALEXANDER NEMENOV/)

“(The) United States went out and made the ethical decision to exchange prisoners to get their innocent Americans out of that country, even while exchanging them for someone who’s more high-profile and valuable in the United States,” he said.

“The Russians, the Chinese, Venezuelans, Iran, Syria, North Korea, none of them ever in their whole history have or ever would make an exchange for a prisoner who is just an average one of their citizens. They would never do that. And that’s what sets the United States apart.”

In graphic detail, Reed described his living conditions for more than two years, surrounded by “really disturbed individuals” with “severe, psychological health issues.”

“There was blood all over the walls there, where prisoners had killed themselves, or killed other prisoners, or attempted to do that,” Reed told CNN. “The toilet’s just a hole in the floor. And there’s, you know, crap everywhere, all over the floor, on the walls. There’s people in there also that walk around that look like zombies.”

But Reed’s not done fighting yet, he said. Paul Whelan, a Canadian-born American serving 16 years for spying, and WNBA star Brittney Griner remain in Russian prisons.

“We need to do absolutely everything we can, as Americans, to advocate for those Americans who are being held illegally overseas and do every single thing we can possible to get them out,” Reed said.