In the largest West-Moscow exchange since the end of the Cold War, almost two dozen participants represented the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Belarus, and Russia.
President Biden hailed the agreement as a “feat of diplomacy” and said that among those freed from Russia were US reporter Evan Gershkovich and British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Marc Fogel, an American instructor serving a 14-year prison term in Russia for possessing 17 grams of medicinal cannabis, was not party to the arrangement.
Although the medication was prohibited in Russia, it had been prescribed to him in the US.
Mr. Fogel’s family claimed he was “not rich, a celebrity, or connected to powerful patrons,” making it “incomprehensible” that he was left out of the prisoner swap and that the Biden administration had forgotten about him.
They called it “wrong, unfair, and not the America we know and love” and described it as a “glaring injustice” that the US and its Western allies were able to secure the release of inmates who had been arrested after Mr. Fogel.
