Trump announces the release of former US Marine Robert Gilman, detained in Russia since 2022

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Tuesday that former US Marine Robert Gilman, detained in Russia since 2022, has been released and will arrive in Washington tonight, a fact that he attributed to recent conversations with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

“I am proud to announce that American citizen Robert Gilman, a former United States Marine, is returning home! As is already well known by the media, Robert was imprisoned in Russia in 2022, during the (Joe) Biden Administration. Following my conversations with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him, for purely humanitarian reasons,” he stated on his social networks.

The tenant of the White House has expressed his gratitude to the Kremlin for a concession that, as he has assured, has not entailed “any exchange” of prisoners, although the Russian authorities have not commented so far on this announcement.

Trump has reported that the former Marine will land “tonight” at Andrews Air Force Base – in the state of Maryland, located near the US capital, Washington – aboard a plane with some of his “representatives” and with his “wonderful mother, Nancy.”

The Republican has taken pride in the fact that under his mandate the return of Americans detained abroad has been prioritized. “We have done it at an unprecedented level, returning hundreds of people to their families,” he said.

He also expressed his gratitude for Gilman’s release to his “incredible team,” as well as Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as Special Envoy for Kidnapping Response Adam Boehler and Senior Counterterrorism Director Sebastian Gorka.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Moscow for “its collaboration” with Witkoff to free Gilman “and allow him to receive the necessary medical treatment in the United States.”

In a statement, the head of US diplomacy wanted to highlight this “positive step”, although he assured that Washington continues to “seek the immediate return of all other Americans unjustly detained”, including Professor Stephen Hubbard, accused of fighting alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces and detained since April 2022, when Russian troops captured him in the Ukrainian city of Izium.

A Russian court sentenced Gilman to four and a half years in 2022, although his sentence was reduced by one year. In October 2024, the former Marine was sentenced to seven years and one month for refusing to comply with the daily routine and using physical violence against a prison employee. In April 2025, this sentence was increased by one year.

Likewise, in December 2025, another court handed down another sentence of an additional two years in prison against Gilman, imprisoned three years earlier for assaulting a police officer. The former marine was detained in January 2022 at the Voronezh train station.