“I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now,“ said Fogel, an American flag draped around his shoulders. “I’m a middle-class school teacher who’s now in a dream world.”
The release of 63-year-old Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since August 2021 and was serving a 14-year sentence, came as Trump seeks to improve relations with Moscow as part of an effort to secure an end to the war in Ukraine.
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Fogel was released into the custody of Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who made an unannounced stop in Moscow on Tuesday to pick him up.
Asked what the United States gave up in exchange for Fogel, Trump told reporters earlier: “Not much” and called the release a show of good faith from the Russians.
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 in his luggage. The marijuana had been medically prescribed in Pennsylvania, where it is legal, said Martin De Luca, a member of Fogel's legal team.
“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. “This has been the darkest and most painful period of our lives, but today, we begin to heal.”
Fogel was left out of a historic swap of prisoners in 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.
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