Former president Donald Trump welcomed back Marc Fogel, an American teacher recently freed from a Russian prison. Fogel had been in prison since 2021 on drug charges relating to cannabis. He got in late Tuesday night at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and then made a stop at the White House, where he was warmly welcomed by Trump, who remarked that Fogel “looked damned good.”
The release of Fogel was a negotiated exchange between the US and Russia, during which Marc was an American teacher who taught the children of diplomats and was fluent in Russian. Trump characterized the deal as a “show of good faith” by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said that this exchange might be a bridge toward peace, given that it came during negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, which has claimed thousands of lives since Russia invaded nearly three years ago.
Fogel’s legal team thanked Trump for securing his release and scorned the “bureaucratic inaction” of the Biden administration by contrast. His family lobbied to have him released, disappointed by several previous prisoner swaps that did not involve him dating back to the release of US basketball star Brittney Griner in 2022.
Marc Fogel was arrested at a Russian airport in 2021 with a small amount of cannabis, which was prescribed for his medical use in the US. Not until December 2024 did the US government consider him wrongfully detained, yet his family had lobbied for his release for several years. The White House took to social media to memorialize the event with the announcement that “PROMISES MADE, PROMISES KEPT!” and provides a glimpse of Fogel reconnecting.
Meanwhile, doubts about what, if anything, the US gave in exchange for his freedom raise questions about timing in the broader world of politics. According to US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, the release shows that tensions between the US and Russia may ease to some extent; this has a particular bearing on the events in Ukraine.
Fogel’s return is yet another watershed moment in US-Russian relations, and both sides will probably monitor developments closely.
