After enduring three years in a Russian penal colony, American schoolteacher Marc Fogel was seen kissing his passport and running up the steps of the plane sent to rescue him, a new video released by Russian media documenting his release shows.
Fogel, 63, was given a 14-year prison sentence for possessing medical marijuana in 2021. An employee of the Anglo-American School of Moscow, Fogel spent 27 years teaching overseas and was planning to retire the year he was arrested. An American doctor prescribed the marijuana after Fogel had surgeries on his back, shoulder, and knee.
NEW: Russia released a video showing Marc Fogel’s release.
He kisses his passport and runs up the steps of the plane. pic.twitter.com/kiiH7Lr7BP
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) February 14, 2025
In the video, Fogel is seen being escorted to a van by a masked man, putting on his Pittsburgh Steelers hat on his way to the airport, and stating that he was tired. A voice in the video asks him where he thinks he is going, to which he replies “I hope to the airport.”
“I just want to be reunited with my family,” Fogel said.
Upon arriving at the airport, Fogel is seen being greeted by Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who negotiated his release and picked Fogel up with his plane.
“Let’s get you on the plane,” Witkoff tells Fogel.
Fogel was then handed a passport, which he immediately kissed. Upon arriving at the plane, Fogel can be heard joyfully shouting and seen running up the stairs.
Upon Fogel’s return to the United States on Tuesday, he was welcomed at the White House by President Donald Trump.
“I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now,” Fogel said alongside Trump. “I want you to know that I am not a hero in this at all and President Trump is a hero. These men that came from the diplomatic service are heroes. The senators and representatives that passed legislation in my honor to get me home are heroes. I am in awe of what they all did.”
Trump spoke about his meeting with Fogel’s mother, Malphine Fogel, at his July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he told her he would do everything he could to free her son.
“When I saw the mother at a rally, she said, ‘If you win, will you get my son out?’ And I promised — she’s 95-years-old — and I said, ‘We’ll get him out,’ and we got him out pretty quickly. She made quite an impression.”
Malphine told The Daily Wire at the time that Trump promised three times to get him home.
“When I met President Trump, he told me to take his arm because he could see I struggle with walking after I broke my kneecap,” Malphine said. “I just kept telling him he needs to remember Marc’s name.”
Fogel called his 95-year-old mother, who relentlessly fought for his release, “the most dynamic 95-year-old on earth right now.”
After his meeting with Trump, he is expected to go to Texas for medical evaluation and rehabilitation.
“I’m a middle-class schoolteacher who is now in a dream world,” Fogel said, to which Trump quipped: “We’re going to show you the Lincoln bedroom. It’s a special place.”
The Daily Wire previously reported on Fogel sinking into a depression after being left out of an August prisoner swap deal with Russia.
“I cannot believe this,” Marc Fogel said on a call to his family, a recording of which was obtained by The Daily Wire. “I just don’t even want to get out of bed. I am shocked and sickened and out of breath and energy.”
Marc Fogel, an American teacher imprisoned in Russia for the last three years, said he “feels like” his “soul is dead” after he was excluded from last week’s prisoner swap.
We obtained a recording of his call with his family, reacting to the news that he won’t be going home: pic.twitter.com/3JHlbJHHXN
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) August 6, 2024
Fogel told his family he felt “like a second-class citizen” as the Biden administration prioritized the release of high-profile prisoners like WNBA player Brittney Griner and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, the latter of whom was included in the August swamp.
“I think that teachers have just been shat upon,” Fogel said. “It’s hard to have any faith.”
