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The release of several Americans and other westerners from Russian detention has been hailed as the biggest and most significant prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War.
But one family has been left “heartbroken and outraged” after their loved one was left out of the historic deal.
American teacher Marc Fogel, originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been held in a Russian prison for the last three years after he was arrested in August 2021 for possession of 17 grams of medical cannabis.
On Thursday, as three Americans touched down back on US soil following the historic deal negotiated by President Joe Biden, Fogel’s wife spoke out to say the family is “devastated” that he wasn’t among them.
“We are devastated, and we feel that Marc has definitely been left behind,” Jane Fogel, Marc's wife of 27 years, told Newsweek.
“He has not committed a crime worthy of the punishment he is enduring, and people are being set free that have done horrible things.
“He's an American who has been there for three years, and he should've been part of this swap.”
Jane said that the family was “disappointed” with the Biden administration’s handling of her husband’s case.
“We all voted for him. We’re very disappointed in the lack of communication we have had with the administration, and we’re devastated Marc wasn’t part of this swap,” she said.
Fogel and his wife had been teaching at the Anglo-American School of Moscow for 27 years.
The 63-year-old had been due to retire in 2020 but opted to stay on an extra year.
In August 2021, the couple was returning from a summer vacation when Fogel was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport.
He was detained for possession of medical cannabis, convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. In 2022, he was sent to a Russian penal colony.
His wife has since drawn comparisons between his plight and that of WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in February 2022, also at Sheremetyevo International Airport, after Russian authorities found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage.
After pleading guilty, Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison but was released less than one year later in a prisoner swap, where the Biden administration exchanged the sports star for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
“While Brittney was swapped within a year of her arrest for one of the world's most notorious Russian arms dealers, Marc was left behind,” Fogel’s family added in a statement on Thursday.
In a press conference on Thursday, US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel reassured families that while it was a “good day”, the Biden administration will “continue to work tirelessly, around the clock” to bring those still detained in Russia home.
Addressing Fogel’s case specifically, he said: “We have called for Mark's humanitarian release. We will continue to engage and work through our team in Moscow and continue to have those conversations.”
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed the three newly-freed Americans – Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan and British-Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza – late on Thursday night as they touched down safely on US soil.
In return, several western countries released their own prisoners, including former Russian FSB officer Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 murder of the ex-Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump slammed the prisoner exchange, calling US negotiators “an embarrassment,” and asking for details about the swap, such as if the deal had been made in cash.
Though spearheaded by the White House, the negotiations involved multiple nations and groups of people, including WSJ colleagues, loved ones, tech moguls, Hillary Clinton, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, and Gershkovich’s mother.
