A US teacher who has been held in Russia since 2021 has been greeted at the White House by Donald Trump, who claimed the release could be an “important part” of ending the Ukraine war and that another, unidentified person would be released on Wednesday.
Marc Fogel, who arrived in the US on a flight from Moscow on Tuesday, said: “I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now. I’m a middle-class school teacher who’s now in a dream world.”
Trump, standing alongside Fogel in the White House diplomatic reception room, said: “To me he looks damned good.” Both thanked the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for his release, and Trump signaled another release on Wednesday without giving further details.
Fogel, a Pennsylvania schoolteacher sentenced in Russia to 14 years on drug-trafficking charges, was released on Tuesday after an unannounced visit to Moscow by Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
Donald Trump welcomes Mark Fogel at the White House. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/EPA
“Today, President Donald J Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff are able to announce that Mr Witkoff is leaving Russian airspace with Marc Fogel, an American who was detained by Russia,” Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, said in a statement.
In his statement, Waltz said that the US and Russia “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”.
Asked what the US had given in return for Fogel’s release, Trump later said: “Not much.”
He told reporters: “We were treated very nicely by Russia, actually. I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war.”
Previous negotiations have occasionally involved reciprocal releases of detainees and prisoners.
The deal was negotiated in secret, but rumors began circulating about Witkoff’s presence in Russia when his private jet was spotted landing in Moscow.
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier in the day that he had “no information” about the reported arrival of Witkoff’s plane.
Family members of Marc Fogel rally outside the White House for his release on 15 July 2023 in Washington DC. Photograph: Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
Fogel had worked as a teacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow since 2012 and taught overseas in countries like Oman and Malaysia. He was arrested in 2021 at a Moscow airport after Russian officials found less than an ounce of marijuana in his luggage.
The surprise release of Fogel highlights the ongoing backchannel negotiations between the US and Russia and signals Putin’s intent to cultivate ties with the Trump administration ahead of expected peace talks over the war in Ukraine.
Putin has showered Trump with compliments since his inauguration, repeatedly praising him as “brave” for surviving an assassination attempt while also signaling his readiness to meet with the US leader.
Trump has said that he has spoken with Putin but has been vague on the details other than to say he was making “progress” to secure a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Monday, Trump suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian some day”, as his vice-president, JD Vance, gears up to meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, later this week at the Munich security conference.
Russia’s latest engagement with the US will set off alarm bells in Kyiv, where Zelenskyy must navigate the new reality of a US administration that has opened dialogue with Moscow while at times displaying open hostility toward Ukraine.
Fogel and his family had hoped he would be included in the historic prisoner exchange in August that freed the Wall Street journalist Evan Gershkovich and the US marine Paul Whelan. At the time, Fogel was not yet designated as “wrongfully detained” by the US government, a label he received only late last year.
In a statement, Fogel’s family said they were “beyond grateful, relieved and overwhelmed” that he was coming home.
“This has been the darkest and most painful period of our lives, but today, we begin to heal,” they said. “For the first time in years, our family can look forward to the future with hope.”