Pennsylvania teacher released from Russian penal colony as Ukraine war negotiations begin

John Ransom, ReadLion

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz announced the release of Pennsylvania schoolteacher Marc Fogel after an undisclosed U.S.-Russia exchange.

“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,” said the statement by Waltz released by the White House.

Fogel, 63, was arrested on Aug. 14, 2021, at the Sheremetyevo Airport near Moscow, as he entered Russia with a canister containing cannabis he said was prescribed by a doctor in the U.S. for back pain, according to The New York Times.

Fogel was a teacher at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, teaching mostly the children of diplomats. Previously the teachers enjoyed diplomatic immunity, but that immunity was stripped as relations with the U.S. deteriorated in 2021.

A former American diplomat who knew Fogel said his arrest was planned by Moscow.

“This was definitely a setup,” Eric Rubin, a former diplomat in Moscow told The New York Times.

Fogel was subsequently sentenced by Russia to 14 years in prison and assigned to a penal colony.

Rubin called the sentence “essentially a hostage-taking situation,” and noted that Russians convicted of similar offenses get probation.

Russia maintains around 700 penal colonies, where prisoners are housed in ramshackle buildings, forced to share a cell with up to 60 others while performing manual labor, according to reports from ABC Australia.

“No one in the Russian penitentiary system is safe,” says Grigory Vaypan, a lawyer from the leading Russian human rights group Memorial.

“For political prisoners, the situation is often worse, because the state aims to additionally punish them, or additionally isolate them from the world, or do everything to break their spirit,” Vaypan added.

As other American prisoners were exchanged and Fogel was left behind, he began to express some of that despair.

“It’s like I’m in a bottomless pit and it keeps getting worse,” Fogel said in a phone call with family and friends in August 2024.

But in July 2024, just moments before President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, then-candidate Trump met with Fogel’s 95-year-old mother and promised to secure his release if he won the election.

“He said, ‘If I get in, I’ll get him out.’ I really think he was instrumental in getting this to happen,” said Fogel’s mother, Malphine, according to the local TribLive news site.

In its statement, the Trump administration tied the release of Fogel to the upcoming negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

“President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the President’s advisors 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,” said Waltz.

Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, will be meeting with European and Ukrainian leaders at the Munich Security conference this week to discuss the broad outlines of negotiations with Moscow over the end of the war, reported the Associated Press (AP).

“We will deliver our expectation to the allies,” Kellogg told the AP. “When we come back from Munich – we want to deliver to the president the options, so when he does get (directly) involved in the peace process, he knows what it will look like for him.”

But for the Fogel family, the release, whatever the background, is reason enough for thanks.

“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” said a statement by the family, reported by NBC News.

Fogel will spend several weeks at a U.S. Army hospital in San Antonio, Texas, getting a full medical work-up and “post isolation support activity,” under a law called the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act of 2020, reported TribLive.

Prominent Pennsylvanian government officials, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, Sen. John Fetterman, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler and Rep. Mike Kelly, who represents Butler, expressed thanks for Fogel’s release.

“Marc Fogel’s return home is long overdue—and I know all of Pennsylvania, especially his family, will be welcoming him back with open arms,” said Fetterman via X. “I want to thank [President Trump] and @SteveWitkoff for their efforts in finally bringing Marc home.”

But perhaps the best response, appropriately, came from Fogel’s 95-year-old mother.

When informed that her son was released and on his way home, Malphine told NBC News wryly, “Don’t tell Trump. He was never a Trump supporter. He will be.”

Indeed, Fogel called the president a “hero.”

“I want you to know that I am not a hero in this at all,” Fogel said. “President Trump is a hero. Those that came from the diplomatic service are heroes. The senators and representatives that passed legislation in my honor to get me home are heroes.”

In his statement, Waltz promised President Trump “will continue until all Americans being held” are released. TribLive reported that 33 other Americans are still being wrongfully detained by Russia.

When asked exactly what the Fogel exchange entailed for the U.S. Trump replied coyly, “not much,” said the AP.

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