A Russian imprisoned in the United States will be freed “in the coming days” in exchange for the release this week of the American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters that Russia would not identify the prisoner until after the release.
Mr. Peskov said that intense talks between the United States and Russia 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.”
Mr. Peskov added, “This citizen of the Russian Federation will also be returned to Russia in the coming days,
American officials had no immediate comment.
Mr. Fogel, who had spent more than three years in prison in Russia, returned to the United States from Moscow on Tuesday on a private jet with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, whose portfolio has expanded to include Russia and its war in Ukraine.
He was greeted at the White House by Mr. Trump, whom he praised and thanked for arranging his release.
While the White House referred to Mr. Fogel’s release as an “exchange,” it was not immediately clear who, or what, the Kremlin would get out of the deal.
Mr. Fogel, 63, had worked at the Anglo-American School of Moscow for almost 10 years before being arrested at a Moscow airport in August 2021.
He was found to have been traveling with cannabis, which his lawyer has said was intended to alleviate back pain. Mr. Fogel was found guilty in June 2022 for the Russian authorities said was engaging in “large-scale drug smuggling” and sentenced to 14 years at a labor camp.
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