WASHINGTON — Taylor Dudley, a Lansing, Michigan, man who spent nine months in Russian captivity, returned with his mother to Michigan on Friday after flying overnight from Poland.
Dudley, 35, entered the province of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea last April without the proper paperwork and was jailed by Russian authorities as he awaited trial for illegally attempting to enter the country.
He had been in Europe backpacking and traveled to Poland for a music festival. Family spokesperson Jonathan Franks declined to say why Dudley went to Russia, but said he had been listed by the James Foley Foundation as a wrongful detainee, which includes people detained primarily because they are a U.S. citizen or to influence the U.S. government.
Dudley and his mother, Shelley, appeared in Washington on Friday morning alongside the people who helped secure his release on Thursday: former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Richardson Center executive director Mickey Bergman, philanthropist Steve Menzies and Franks.
He was officially deported by the Russian government at the request of Richardson and his team on Thursday. There was no prisoner exchange made to secure his release.
"Our objective is to bring Americans home using whatever tools are available," Richardson said Friday. "It's important to acknowledge that despite the current climate between our two countries, which is not good, the Russian authorities did the right thing by releasing Taylor yesterday."
Dudley did not speak Friday morning except to tell The Detroit News that he and his mother are flying to Lansing that afternoon and that he's looking forward to reuniting with his dog, which he hasn't seen in 11 months.
Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador the United Nations during the Clinton administration, said Taylor's family enlisted his help six months ago while he was in Russia working to release former Marine Trevor Reed and WNBA star Brittney Griner, two other Americans who have since been returned to the U.S.
"The problem," Richardson said, was that Kaliningrad, where Dudley was held, is a Russian province separated from the rest of the country, bordered by Lithuania and Poland.
"There was difficulty by the American embassy in being able to go there and deal with some of Taylor's issues," Richardson told reporters.
Richardson and his team traveled to Moscow several times to negotiate with Russian "counterparts" over the last year. They made initial contact with Dudley in September and believed they could bring him home then, but that effort "fell short," Bergman said.
"Following our meeting in September we embarked on direct, discreet grass-roots work in both Moscow and Kaliningrad," Richardson told reporters.
Armenian-Russian businessman Ara Abramyan and another Russian, Vitaly Pruss, aided in the negotiations, Richardson said.
Dudley's case was not publicized before Thursday at the request of the family.
His release comes years after another Michigan man, Paul Whelan of Novi, was taken into captivity by Russian officials. Whelan, a former U.S. Marine and corporate security director with a Michigan-based auto supplier, has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018 after he was arrested and charged with espionage.
Whelan has vehemently denied the accusation and argued he was entrapped, while the Biden administration deems his detention "wrongful" and has pressed for his release from a 16-year sentence of hard labor. Officials sought to include Whelan in a prisoner swap last month, in which they traded Griner for a convicted Russian arms dealer, but were unable to bring him home.
A Biden administration official told The Washington Post that Dudley's release has "little bearing" on Whelan's case.
Richardson pushed back on that characterization Friday.
"Diplomacy is about opening and keeping channels of communication open," Richardson said. "And every engagement with the Russians provides another chance to ask for Paul's release. Every release is different than the others."
