American school teacher Marc Fogel released from prison in Russia
WASHINGTON — American school teacher Marc Fogel has been released by Russia after more than three years in custody, following an arrest for medical marijuana possession, as part of an agreement between Washington and Moscow that the U.S. said came about a result of talks to end the war in Ukraine.
The White House said Tuesday afternoon that Fogel was leaving Russian airspace with President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and would be back on American soil by the end of the day.
In a statement announcing Fogel's release, White House national security advisor Michael Waltz said 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."
Trump's administration has been actively workingon a plan to end the war, with the president suggesting he'd be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin and then pulling back as his administration worked to keep the discussions private. Trump has sidestepped questions about whether he's spoken directly to Putin since taking office. He previously threatened to put sanctions on the country if Putin did not enter into negotiations to end the war.
Fogel has been in Russian custody since his August 2021 arrest in Moscow. He was sentenced in 2022 to a 14-year sentence Russian penal colony. The State Department during the Biden administration determined in December that Fogel had been wrongfully detained by Russia in the case in which he was convicted of drug smuggling.
The Fogel family could not immediately be reached for comment.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers sent the Trump administration a letter in January urging the administration to make Fogel's release a priority. They expressed disappointment that he was not released at the same time as Americans Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva in August.
"Marc Fogel is a good man who made a mistake, and now he's facing an inhumane sentence in a notoriously brutal Russian prison," Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., said in a statement that accompanied the letter.
The White House did not immediately provide additional details on what went into the release, which came as U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, prepared to discuss the war that is approaching its third anniversary with European leaders at the Munich Security Conference.
"Europeans have to own this conflict going forward. President Trump is going to end it," Waltz said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "And then in terms of security guarantees, that is squarely going to be with the Europeans."
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