Trump Sees Russia Prisoner Release as ‘Start of a Relationship’ to End Ukraine War

US President Donald Trump expressed hope that Russia’s release of American prisoner Marc Fogel on Tuesday could pave the way for renewed ties with Moscow and progress toward ending the war in Ukraine.

“We were treated very nicely by Russia. I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021, landed in the United States on Tuesday, where he was scheduled to meet Trump, the White House confirmed.

“Promises made, promises kept!!!” the White House announced in a post on X, accompanied by a photo of Fogel stepping off a plane, according to AFP and Le Monde.

During the meeting with Fogel, Trump revealed that another detainee would be released on Wednesday but did not provide further details.

Trump called the prisoner deal with Russia “very fair, very reasonable,” adding, “Somebody else is being released tomorrow.”

As previously reported by Kyiv Post, Fogel was released in a “prisoner exchange” with the Kremlin, announced after a plane carrying Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was tracked landing in Moscow on Tuesday.

The terms of the exchange remain undisclosed, but US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz confirmed shortly after the plane departed Moscow that Witkoff had traveled to Russia on the administration’s behalf to retrieve Fogel and initiate the first steps in the Ukraine peace process.

“President Trump, Steve Witkoff, and the president’s advisers negotiated an exchange as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign that we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine,” Waltz quoted as saying by The New York Times (NYT).

Fogel, an American schoolteacher, was arrested at a Russian airport in 2021 for possessing 14 grams of medical marijuana prescribed in the US for his chronic back pain. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

No senior US official had visited Moscow since 2021, when then-CIA Director William J. Burns flew to the Russian capital in a last-ditch effort to prevent the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to NYT.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied in a briefing with journalists that any contact had taken place with a White House envoy, saying that Russian authorities have no plans for official communication with Witkoff, whom he described as “one of Trump’s closest associates.”

Moscow’s denials have only added to speculation at a time when reports of US-Russia contact over the war in Ukraine continue to grow.