The United States has announced the release in Russia of its citizen Marc Fogel, convicted of drug trafficking in that country, but from which Washington held that he was unjustly imprisoned. The delivery of the American citizen is part of a exchange with Russia, as required by the White House, which has linked the exchange to efforts to end the war in Ukraine, without providing more details.
A statement signed by the White House Security Minister Mike Waltz points out that the envoy of US President Donald Trump for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has negotiated Fogel’s release and flies with him back to the US.
Fogel, a 63 -year -old teacher, had been sentenced to 14 years in prison, of whom he had turned four, after being arrested at the Moscow Airport of Sheremétevo in August 2021 with 17 grams of marijuana in his luggage. The American claimed that he was carrying them for consumption for medical reasons.
The announcement of the release comes when from Washington they seem to intensify the efforts to achieve negotiations between Moscow and kyiv to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. In recent days, Trump had revealed that he has maintained contact with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, although he has not wanted to make known how many occasions have spoken, when exactly or the content of his conversation.
In addition, the American vice president, JD Vance, plans to meet on Friday with President Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, with whom he will coincide at the Munich Security Conference that opens that day. The Trump envoy for Ukraine, the retired general Thomas Kellogg, and the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, also plan to travel to kyiv.
Speaking from the Oval Office, the US President has praised the treatment received from Russia in the liberation of Fogel and expressed his hope that the exchange represents “the beginning of a relationship where we can end the war.” And he insisted: “We have to stop war. We have to stop death, we are losing all those soldiers on the Ukrainian side and the Russian side, 1.5 million .. we have to finish it. ”
“President Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff and President’s advisors negotiated an exchange that serves as proof of good faith of the Russians and a sign that we move in the right direction to end the terrible and brutal war in Ukraine,” he said Waltz in the statement. The document does not specify which prisoners received Russia in the exchange.
During his electoral campaign, Trump had assured that if he returned to the White House, he would end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”, forcing to sit down to negotiate Putin and Zelenski. But, despite the fact that several times his interest in concluding a conflict that is about to turn three years, has failed to open negotiations. The Russian president has been elusive so far.
Until now, Moscow has had no interest in negotiating: it is offensive in the conflict and bets that it is a matter of time that kyiv’s allied block begins to divide. Despite the serious international sanctions, its economy has not deteriorated to the levels that the allies expected. But this Tuesday Trump said in the Oval Office about the Russian invasion in Ukraine that they are achieving “good progress.”
Fogel’s family has also issued a statement. “We are more than grateful, relieved and overwhelmed because after more than three years of detention, our father, husband and son, Marc Fogel, finally returns home,” he said. The teacher was not included in the exchange of prisoners that the United States and Russia completed last August. In the exchange, Washington achieved the release of 16 prisoners, including the journalist of the Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich, whom Moscow had accused of espionage, and Russian opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza. Moscow, on the other hand, achieved the release of eight alleged Russian agents, including the citizen of dual Russian and Spanish nationality Pavel Rubtsov, also known as Pablo González Yagüe.
