Fogel’s release comes as the Trump administration tries to improve relations with Russia and wind down the war in Ukraine [Getty]
Russia released American schoolteacher Marc Fogel on Tuesday following an unannounced visit to Moscow by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, the White House said.
The release of 63-year-old Fogel, who has been detained in Russia since August 2021, comes as US President Donald Trump seeks to improve relations with Moscow as part of an effort to secure an end to the war in Ukraine.
“President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the president’s advisers negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine,” White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said.
The White House did not say what the United States may have offered in return for Fogel’s release, which Fogel’s Russian lawyer Dmitry Ovsyannikov confirmed to state news agency RIA without providing details.
Waltz said that Witkoff, Trump’s chief Middle East envoy, was leaving Russian airspace with Fogel, who is from Pennsylvania. A White House official said Fogel may stop in Washington.
“By tonight, Marc Fogel will be on American soil and reunited with his family and loved ones thanks to President Trump’s leadership,” Waltz said.
Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in prison for drug smuggling after he was detained in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in August 2021 with 17 grams of marijuana – which he said he uses for medical reasons – in his luggage.
“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” the Fogel family said in a statement.
Fogel was left out of a historic swap of prisoners last August that involved 24 prisoners – 16 sent from Russia to the West, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and eight sent back to Russia from the West.
“This has been the darkest and most painful period of our lives, but today, we begin to heal,” the Fogel family said.
Trump has indicated he has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin but has been vague on the details other than to say he is insistent on ending the three-year-old Ukraine war.
“We’re making good progress there. I think, I really think we’re making some very good progress,” Trump told reporters about Ukraine on Tuesday.
(Reuters)
