February 11, 2025
Freedom for Marc Fogel/Facebook
Supporters rallied outside the White House in 2023 for the release of Marc Fogel, who has been detained in Russia for over three years.
A Pennsylvania teacher who has been detained in Russia since 2021 is heading home, White House officials said Tuesday.
Marc Fogel, a resident of Oakmont in Allegheny County, was released in an apparent exchange negotiated by the Trump administration. He is aboard a plane with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and expected to land in America later Tuesday night, according to national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Waltz did not elaborate on the terms of the exchange but said the release "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."
— Mike Waltz (@MikeWaltz47) February 11, 2025
Fogel was initially detained at Sheremetyevo Airport in August 2021 when Russian authorities discovered half an ounce of medical marijuana in his luggage. A doctor had prescribed him cannabis back in the United States to treat chronic pain from previous surgeries. Fogel had been working internationally at the time of his arrest and spent the previous decade teaching in Russia. He and his wife Jane were attempting to reenter the country to teach at the Anglo-American School of Moscow when he was stopped.
In 2022, a Russian court sentenced him to 14 years in prison at a high-security penal colony. Moscow officials had denied the White House's previous requests for release on humanitarian grounds.
The U.S. Department of State officially classified Fogel as wrongfully detained in December 2024.
Last month, both both U.S. senators and all 11 House representatives from Pennsylvania pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to secure Fogel's release in a letter. The delegation expressed dismay that he was not included in the August 2024 prisoner exchange that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and expressed concern over Fogel's "deteriorating health."
"The Russian Government’s outrageous treatment of this American teacher is a clear effort to use Marc as a political pawn to exert leverage on the United States," the letter read. "It must not stand."
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