US President Donald Trump has stated that Russia has agreed to release Robert Gilman, a former US Marine detained in Russia, following his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Following my talks with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him solely on humanitarian grounds. We appreciate this decision and the fact that Russia did not ask for anyone in return – there was no exchange,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
It had previously emerged that a former US Marine, who had been held in prison in Russia since 2022, had been released; reports suggested he had been in a serious condition in a psychiatric hospital in recent weeks.
Robert Gilman, 32, left Russia for Washington accompanied by US government officials, said Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer at the human rights group Global Reach. Gilman will subsequently fly to Texas for a medical examination and treatment.
Gilman’s case and his state of health prompted US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to appeal directly to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to secure his release.
Gilman was released on “humanitarian grounds”, a US State Department spokesperson said.
The Kremlin has not yet issued any immediate comments on this report.
At the end of June, Gilman, who was being held in a prison in Voronezh, Russia, approximately 500 kilometres south of Moscow, was transferred to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with ‘dissociative stupor’.
According to Lebson, Robert Gilman, who was discharged from the US Army in August 2020, was travelling by train when he was arrested in January 2022 in Voronezh. Russian media reported that he was detained for allegedly kicking a police officer whilst intoxicated and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. A judge in Voronezh subsequently added an eight-year prison sentence after Gilman allegedly attacked prison guards whilst in custody.
In an article for the Boston Globe published in October 2024, his father, Vladimir Gilman, who had emigrated to Massachusetts from Russia, wrote that the charges were false.
It is unclear why Gilman’s condition has deteriorated so sharply in recent months. Human rights activist Eric Lebson stated that Gilman had “been subjected to ill-treatment” during his time in prison, but did not provide further details.
The issue of American citizens being held in Russian prisons has become a major political issue in recent years. Under President Donald Trump, as well as his predecessor Joe Biden, Moscow and Washington have carried out several major prisoner exchanges involving detainees held in the US and Russia.