Biden praises Russia prisoner exchange, while jailed teacher’s family denounces ‘blatant injustice’

The family of a teacher not included in a landmark prisoner swap between Russia and the West have demanded “immediate action” from US President Joe Biden.

Some two dozen people from countries including Russia, the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Belarus were involved in the biggest exchange between the West and Moscow since the Cold War.

British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza and US reporter Evan Gershkovich were among those freed from Russia under the deal, hailed by Mr Biden as a “feat of diplomacy”.

Not included in the agreement was Marc Fogel, an American teacher serving a 14-year jail sentence in Russia for possession of 17 grams of medical cannabis.

The drug had been prescribed to him in the US but was illegal in Russia. He was jailed in August 2021.

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Mr Fogel’s family said it was “incomprehensible” he was not included in the prisoner swap and suggested he was forgotten by the Biden administration because he is “not rich, a celebrity, or connected to powerful patrons”.

They said it was a “glaring injustice” that US and Western partners managed to win the release of prisoners detained after Mr Fogel, calling it “wrong, unfair, and not the America we know and love”.

“All [Mark] has is his family, led by his 95-year-old mother, Malphine, who is fighting for her son’s rights,” they said.

“This fight has been met not with support and understanding, but with stonewalling, double standards, and – today – abandoning Marc to die in prison for less than an ounce of medical marijuana prescribed to manage his severe decades-long spinal disease.

“We refuse to remain silent and will continue to fight for Marc. We demand immediate action to secure Marc’s release.”

A White House official said the Biden administration had been working on Mr Fogel’s release for years.

“We absolutely wanted Mark to be included,” the official said. “But it just wasn’t going to happen. You do the best you can and you get what you can.”

Mr Biden was joined by relatives of the freed Americans as he made a statement in the White House, with presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris saying the news gave her “great comfort”.

The complex trade was negotiated with Russia and several other countries in secret for more than a year and represents a major accomplishment that will be presented by the Biden administration as a marquee foreign policy success in an election year.

Those being freed from Russian custody are:

Mr Kara-Murza, Mr Gershkovich, Mr Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, Dieter Voronin, Kevin Lick, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, Ilya Yashin, Liliya Chanysheva, Kseniya Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, and Sasha Skochilenko.

Those being freed from Western prisons are:

Vadim Krasikov, Artem Viktorovich Dultsev, Anna Valerevna Dultseva, Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, Roman Seleznev, Vladislav Klyushin, and Vadim Konoshchenock.

Russia’s President Putin was at the airport in Moscow to greet returning prisoners.

Among those freed is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Georgian citizen in Berlin.

German judges said he acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity, passport, and the resources to carry out the killing.

The killing and subsequent sentencing triggered a major diplomatic row between Russia and Germany, including tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.