Parents of Trevor Reed, jailed in Russia, protest at the White House

▶ Watch Video: Parents of former Marine plead for his release from Russian prison

The family of Trevor Reed, a U.S. citizen and former marine who is serving time in Russia, met with President Joe Biden on Wednesday after protesting outside the White House to bring officials’ attention to their son’s case.

Texas native Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020 on charges of assaulting police officers after a drunken night out in Moscow a year earlier. Reed’s sentence is considered among the harshest handed down for the charge in Russia. Reed has said he has no recollection of the incident and pleaded not guilty.

Biden promised to work to end the “nightmare” of his detention, the White House said.

“President Biden met today with Joey and Paula Reed, the parents of Trevor Reed, who is wrongfully detained in Russia,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

“During their meeting, the president reiterated his commitment to continue to work to secure the release of Trevor, Paul Whelan and other Americans wrongfully held in Russia and elsewhere.”

U.S. officials have accused Russia of holding Reed and Whelan, who is also a former U.S. marine and who had been jailed on espionage charges, as potential pawns in deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations.

A spokesman for Reed said Tuesday on Twitter that the former Marine was “back on hunger strike and back in solitary” confinement.

Reed had previously gone on a two-week-long hunger strike in November 2021, which he said he held because of the conditions, including “in protest over being repeatedly placed in a punitive isolation ward,” his lawyers said at the time.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service confirmed that Reed went on hunger strike at his jail in the region of Mordovia, about 300 miles southeast of Moscow.

“On Monday, March 28, convict Reed went on a hunger strike, having disagreed with the penalty the institution’s disciplinary commission imposed on him, given the circumstances of wrongdoing and previous behavior of the convict,” the service said.

“Currently, Reed is under continual observation by medical workers. The convict is in satisfactory condition,” the statement added.

Diplomatic relations between Russia and the U.S. have been declining for months, and the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens to bring them to a halt. Moscow said last week that President Biden’s calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” had pushed bilateral ties to the brink of collapse.

Since then, Biden also declared that Putin “cannot remain in power” in a speech in Poland.

Reduced communications between Russian and American diplomatic missions could see Washington losing little remaining access to Americans detained in Russia.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that U.S. diplomats are being denied access to Reed and Whelan, whom the U.S. officials say are being held on trumped-up charges.

Another U.S. citizen held in Russia is professional basketball player Brittney Griner who was detained in Moscow airport in mid-February on charges of trying to bring vape cartridges that contained cannabis oil in her luggage, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.