Did Trump Send an Intermediary to Moscow to Do More Than Simply Expedite a Prisoner Release?

Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher who was detained in Russia on drug charges in 2021, has been released in a “prisoner exchange” with the Kremlin that was announced after an airplane carrying US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was tracked landing in Moscow on Tuesday.

The terms of the “exchange” have not been disclosed, but US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz confirmed shortly after the plane took off from Moscow that Witkoff had traveled to Russia at the behest of the administration to pick up Fogel and make the first steps in the Ukraine peace process. 

“President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the president’s advisers negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine,” Waltz said in a statement shared by The New York Times.

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The de-mining job cut are in countries including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Cambodia.

Fogel was arrested at a Russian airport in 2021 for the illegal possession of a small amount of medical marijuana, which had been prescribed in the US. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Russian and Ukrainian mainstream and social media said a Gulfstream G-650ER with the registration number N103WG flew overnight from Washington to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, landing around 10:20 am Moscow time on Tuesday, citing the Adsbexchange service and Flightradar24 aircraft route monitoring services.

That a private aircraft was able to fly from the US to Russia under the current sanctions regime was noteworthy enough, but the aircraft that reportedly made the trip is owned by an aviation company linked to Witkoff – sending the rumor mill into overdrive.

Was this the first face-to-face attempt at negotiating peace in Ukraine?

No other high-ranking American official has visited Moscow since 2021, when William J. Burns, then the C.I.A. director, flew to the Russian capital to try to stop the coming full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to NYT.

Trump himself has used this particular aircraft on several occasions including the 2021 Orlando Conservative Conference and to attend the opening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in December, the investigative Russian news outlet Agentstvo reported.

Axios reported two days ago that the president also allegedly used one of Witkoff’s private jets as a decoy when traveling to an event during his 2024 campaign, fearing an attempt on his life. It wasn’t clear if it was the same aircraft as the one spotted landing in Moscow on Tuesday.

The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied in a briefing with journalists that there had been or would be any contact with a White House envoy, saying that the Russian authorities have no plans for any official communication with Witkoff, who he described as “one of Trump’s closest associates.” 

The flight was a normal “technical flight,” an example of ongoing humanitarian cooperation operations between Washington and Moscow, according to the Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsiya.

However, Agentstvo reported late on Tuesday evening that the Gulfstream had taken off from Moscow at 20:25 local time according to ADSBexchange flight tracking data.

The denials by Moscow may have served to fuel further speculation at a time when reports of contact between the US administration and the Kremlin in respect of the war in Ukraine are increasing.

This is a developing story.