He reported that Vitkoff left the Russian Federation with Fogel as part of a swap.
"President Trump, Steve Vitkoff, and the president's advisors agreed on an exchange that is a gesture of goodwill from the Russians and a sign that we are moving in the right direction to end the cruel and horrific war in Ukraine," the document from Waltz states.
The New York Times reports that Fogel was accused of smuggling medical marijuana into the Russian Federation in August 2021. He was sentenced to 14 years behind bars. It was only in December 2024 that the U.S. State Department officially recognized him as "wrongfully detained."
The negotiations for the exchange were kept secret, and Vitkoff's visit was the first known one since high-ranking American official William Burns, who was then head of the CIA, visited Moscow in 2021 in an attempt to prevent the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, Waltz did not inform whether the U.S. released anyone in return.