THIS is the emotional moment an American schoolteacher choked back tears and hailed President Donald Trump a “hero” after being freed from Putin’s prison.
Marc Fogel, 63, had been serving a brutal 14-year sentence after being caught with medically prescribed marijuana at a Moscow airport in 2021.
But on Tuesday, after three and a half years behind bars, he stepped off a plane in Washington DC and was greeted by Trump at a snow-covered White House.
“I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now,” Fogel said as he wrapped himself in the Stars and Stripes.
“I’m a middle-class schoolteacher who’s now in a dream world.”
Standing beside him, Trump said: “To me he looks damned good.”
Referencing Winston Churchill‘s famous wartime speech, Fogel added: “I think I remember a Churchill quote that he said ‘never have so many owed so much to so few’.
“And I put myself, fortunately and unfortunately, into that category, and I say ‘never has one owed so much to so many’.”
The dramatic release comes as Trump pushes for better relations with Russia, hoping to use diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.
“This could be a big important part of it,” Trump said, adding that securing Fogel’s return was just the beginning.
The President also revealed that another American would be freed on Wednesday but refused to give a name, only saying it was someone “very special.”
“We just wanted to get him back home,” he said of Fogel, before promising to take him on a personal tour of the Lincoln Bedroom upstairs in the White House.
Meanwhile, Moscow said a Russian imprisoned in America would be freed “in the coming days”, according to The New York Times.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov said Russia will not identify the prisoner until after the release.
Mr. Peskov added that intense talks between both countries had led to “both the release of Fogel as well as one of the citizens of the Russian Federation currently held in detention facilities in the United States.”
HIGH-STAKES NEGOTIATIONS
Fogel’s release was secured after behind-the-scenes talks between Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Kremlin officials.
Witkoff flew to Moscow for a secret mission, spending only a few hours on the ground before departing with Fogel on board.
The flight back to Washington stopped in central Europe before touching down in the U.S.
A triumphant Fogel was photographed on the plane home raising a glass of wine, enjoying a cheese plate, and clutching his U.S. passport in a snap posted online by Trump’s top hostage envoy, Adam Boehler.
Asked what the U.S. had given up in exchange for Fogel, Trump shrugged off concerns, saying: “Not much.”
“We were treated very nicely by Russia,” he said.
“Actually, I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that [Ukraine] war and millions of people can stop being killed.”
‘DARKEST PERIOD OF OUR LIVES’
Fogel’s family, who had campaigned tirelessly for his release, said in a statement: “This has been the darkest and most painful period of our lives, but today we begin to heal.
“For the first time in years, our family can look forward to the future with hope.”
The veteran teacher had worked for years at the Anglo-American School in Moscow and was also a former staffer at the U.S. embassy.
He was arrested in August 2021 at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport with 17 grams of marijuana in his luggage — legally prescribed in Pennsylvania for a long-term spinal condition.
But Russian authorities convicted him of drug smuggling and sentenced him to a harsh 14-year term in a high-security penal colony.
His mother, Malphine Fogel, previously blasted the Biden administration’s failure to secure his release, saying: “I don’t think the administration has helped us one bit.”
The release of American basketball star Brittney Griner in 2022, after she was caught with cannabis oil in Russia, had left Fogel’s supporters feeling abandoned.
Grinier was freed in exchange for Viktor Bouta notorious Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” but Fogel was left behind.
Now, Trump is using Fogel’s return to reinforce his stance that he alone can negotiate with Russia.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, described Fogel’s release 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.”
Americans currently detained in Russia
AS Marc Fogel steps into the free world once again, other Americans are still hoping for the same fate as they remain under the Kremlin’s claws.
Here’s a list of US nationals currently detained in Russia:
- James Vincent Wilgus
- Thomas Stwalley
- Eugene Spector
- Andre Khachatoorian
- David Barnes
- Robert Gilman
- Michael Travis Leake
- Yuri Malev
- Robert Woodland
- Ksenia Karelina
- Gordon Black
- Steven Hubbard