Thanking Putin, Trump links American’s release to ending Ukraine war (original) (raw)

President Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday night for releasing American teacher Marc Fogel, who was freed from three and a half years of Russian imprisonment on drug charges in an exchange earlier in the day.

“I appreciate very much what they did in letting Marc go home,” Trump said after he greeted Fogel outside the White House South Portico in the falling snow. Fogel was driven there directly after landing in a private plane from Moscow at Joint Base Andrews, where he was met by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump declined to discuss the terms of the exchange, except to say that they were “very fair, very reasonable, not like deals you’ve seen” under other presidents, many of whom he has criticized for trading Russian prisoners in U.S. jails or extending economic benefits.

Trump said the release could play a significant role in bringing an end to the war in Ukraine. “I think there’s good will, in terms of the war,” Trump said. “I think this … could be a big, important part in getting the war over.”

Although Fogel was designated as “unjustly imprisoned” in Russia by the State Department, Trump described the release as an act of largesse by Putin. “We appreciate President Putin, what he did, he was able to pull it off,” he said.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday a Russian citizen has been released in exchange for Fogel and would be transferred to Russia in the coming days. He did not name the citizen, although Russian media speculated it could be Alexander Vinnik, cybercrime kingpin who pled guilty last year.

Commenting on Trump remarks calling the swap a very important element in ending the war in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “any agreement on the release of U.S. citizen is preceded by very, very meticulous work and negotiations ... such agreements are unlikely to become a turning point, but at the same time they represent the bit by bit steps towards building up mutual trust, which is now at its lowest point.”

The president was accompanied at the late-night welcoming delegation by Rubio, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and lawmakers from Fogel’s home state of Pennsylvania. Standing off to the side was Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, who led the negotiating team in Moscow.

According to Fox News broadcaster Sean Hannity, Witkoff, a real estate developer and longtime friend of Trump, had a 3½-hour meeting with Putin while in Moscow arranging Fogel’s release. The White House did not respond to queries about a Putin meeting.

Trump said a second American would be released from an unspecified country on Wednesday, an individual whose name, he said, would be recognizable.

Fogel, an American flag draped around his neck over the zippered jacket he had on when he left Russia, appeared weary but elated. Following Trump’s lead, he said, “President Putin was very generous and statesmanlike in granting me a pardon.”

“I love our country and I’m so happy to be back here and I wish I could articulate it better,” he said after the welcoming party had moved inside to the White House Diplomatic Reception Room. The “support and love” he had received “brought me to my knees and brought me to tears,” Fogel said as he choked up. “I’m a middle-class schoolteacher who’s now in a dream world.”

Saying he would “forever be indebted to President Trump,” Fogel also praised Witkoff, who also worked with the Biden administration in the final days leading up to last month’s Gaza ceasefire.

First word of Fogel’s release had come in an afternoon statement by Trump national security adviser Michael Waltz, who said that Fogel, traveling with Witkoff, “is leaving Russian airspace.”

“By tonight,” the statement said, Fogel “will be on American soil and reunited with his family and loved ones thanks to President Trump’s leadership.” Adam Boehler, Trump’s newly named special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, posted a picture of Fogel aboard the plane.

Waltz’s statement said Witkoff “and the President’s advisers negotiated an exchange,” although it did not say who or what was traded for Fogel’s freedom. He tied the release to Trump’s efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict, saying that the successful negotiation “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.”

Fogel’s family said in a statement that “we are grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention our father, husband and son … is finally coming home.” They thanked “the unwavering leadership of President Trump.”

Martin De Luca, the lawyer representing Fogel, called his release “a testament to the power of strong leadership” and criticized the Biden administration for “consistent refusals to designate Marc as wrongfully detained” until late last year, while Trump arranged his freedom “in just a few weeks, wasting no time in taking decisive action.”

Trump has said he plans to speak soon with Putin about Ukraine and other matters.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, he said he would resolve the conflict “in 24 hours” after taking office. Last weekend, Trump told reporters he was “making progress” with both Kyiv and Moscow toward a negotiated settlement. In a Friday interview with the New York Post, he said he had spoken to Putin about ending the conflict but would not say when or how many times they have talked. Putin “wants to see people stop dying,” he said.

In an interview with Britain’s ITV News published last weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he “would be ready for any format for talks” if there was “an understanding that America and Europe will not abandon us and they will support us and provide security guarantees.”

Putin, while saying he is open to talks, has not conceded any of his goal of making a significant amount of Ukrainian territory part of Russia.

Keith Kellogg, the retired three-star general whom Trump appointed as his special envoy to the Ukraine war, was widely expected to announce a negotiating plan at this week’s Munich Security Conference in Germany. But he said he plans to use the gathering, attended by European leaders, to instead consult with the Europeans before revealing any specific proposals.

Vice President JD Vance, who is also attending the Munich conference, along with Rubio, is scheduled to meet with Zelensky there on Friday.

Fogel, who worked at the Anglo-American School of Moscow, was arrested at airport in the capital in August 2021 when customs officers found marijuana and cannabis oil in his suitcase as he returned from a trip to the United States. His family said it had been recommended by his U.S. doctor to treat back problems.

He pleaded guilty to charges of transporting and possessing illegal drugs, although his lawyers and family charged that his 14-year sentence was disproportionate to the sentence given Russians charged with the same crime.

His case bore resemblance to that of Brittney Griner’s, the U.S. women’s professional basketball star who was arrested in February 2022 on smuggling charges by Russian customs officials who found cartridges containing a small amount of medically prescribed hash oil in her luggage. In December of that year, after Griner was sentenced to nine years, the Biden administration negotiated her release in exchange for U.S.-imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Griner’s release, and that of other prisoners such as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and U.S. Marine veteran Paul Whelan, led Fogel’s family and supporters to charge that Biden’s failure to include Fogel in swaps amounted to a “betrayal.”

The Biden administration never acknowledged reasons for not including Fogel in previous exchanges, although some reports have highlighted the amount of marijuana he was carrying, which his family said was less than 20 grams. Griner was arrested with less than a gram of hash oil.

In a Fox interview as Fogel was being driven from Andrews to the White House, Boehler, the hostage envoy, said that 10 Americans had “come home after being detained overseas” in Trump’s first weeks in office. He listed six who had been detained in Venezuela who were freed late last month after Trump special envoy Richard Grenell met in Caracas with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a woman he said had been “brought over from Belarus to the border of Lithuania” and “a couple” more he said could not be discussed.

Mary Ilyushina in Berlin contributed to this report.