Donald Trump welcomed the American school house Marc Fogel after his release from prison in Russia, the American president saying that Vladimir Putin had “not much” in return.
Trump said that another detainee would be released on Wednesday without giving his name.
Mr. Fogel, a 63 -year -old former diplomat, landed at the joint Andrews base just outside Washington DC on Tuesday evening, before going to the White House.
His release was negotiated as part of an exchange with Russia, said Mike Waltz, US National Security Advisor. Russia did not immediately comment on the press release.
Trump, standing alongside Mr. Fogel in the White House, said: “For me, he looks damn good.”
He told journalists that liberation was a “good faith” demonstration “of the Russians and that” could be a large important part “of the end of the Russian war in Ukraine.
“We were very well treated by Russia,” he said. “In fact, I hope this is the beginning of a relationship where we can end this war and that millions of people will be able to stop being killed.”
Hundreds of thousands of people, the majority of soldiers, were killed since Russia invaded Ukraine almost three years ago.
Describing the prisoner with Russia as “very fair, very reasonable”, Trump said that “someone else is released tomorrow”.
“I feel like the luckiest man of the earth at the moment,” said Mr. Fogel. “I am a middle -class school teacher who is now in a dream world.”
Mr. Fogel’s sister Anne Fogel told the BBC earlier than her brother, who had been detained in Russia in 2021, was moved last Wednesday from a criminal colony in Rybinsk. She said that the family had known that her release was a possibility, but also that the negotiations were “very tenuous”.
After landing on American soil, the White House posted on X: “I promise, the promises held!” With a photo of Mr. Fogel.
In a press release obtained by CBS News, the BBC news partner, his wife Jane and Sons Ethan and Sam said: “It was the darkest and most painful period in our life, but today, We are starting to heal. ”
Mr. Fogel was arrested at an airport for illegal cannabis possession in 2021.
He was accused of having worn a small amount of medical marijuana, which had been prescribed in the United States, and sentenced to a 14-year-old prison sentence.
Mr. Fogel’s legal team thanked Trump for his role in negotiations and criticized what they called “bureaucratic inaction” of the Biden administration.
“President Trump obtained Marc’s liberation in just a few weeks, who wasted no time taking decisive measures to bring Marc home,” said a statement from his lawyers, also sent to CBS.
Mr. Fogel was not classified by the United States government as detained wrongly before December 2024, despite his sentence in 2022.
His family had attempted to push the former president Joe Biden to obtain his release, and was disappointed when he was excluded from the exchanges of prisoners in 2022 and 2024.
American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in Russia for a similar accusation of cannabis possession in 2022, was Released in an exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor in combat 10 months later.
Subsequently, the Biden administration obtained the release of three other Americans last year as part of The greatest exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West since the Cold War. The liberated Americans were the journalist of the Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich, the American veteran Paul Whelan and the Russian-American radio journalist Asu Kurmasheva.
Anne Fogel said to the BBC At the time of the conviction of “betrayal” when she learned that her brother was not included in the fall of prisoners – which Biden had praised as a “exploit of diplomacy”.
Mr. Fogel, of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, was a teacher at the Anglo-American school in Moscow. He had previously worked as a diplomat at the United States Embassy there.
In prison, he would have taught English to his detained colleagues.
It is not clear if the United States has released someone in exchange for Mr. Fogel.
Mr. Fogel returned to the United States with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy in the Middle East.
Witkoff’s trip to Russia is the first by a senior American official in the country for several years. Most of the contacts between nations were closed after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Waltz said Mr. Fogel’s release was a “sign that we are going in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine”. He did not provide more details.
Trump announced Tuesday that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would go to Ukraine later this week.
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.
But in an interview with Fox News on Monday, he said: “They [Ukraine] May conclude an agreement, they may not conclude an agreement. They can be Russian one day or not be Russian one day. “”
Questioned by the BBC on the link established by officials between the Liberation and the conflict in Ukraine, Anne Fogel said: “These are the giant machinations of global policy at stake. It will be interesting to look back and see how This is all faded and … how the story takes place. “
