Russia has released a former U.S. Marine it imprisoned in 2022 amid fears he was close to death as it tries to curry favor with the Trump administration over its war in Ukraine.
Robert Gilman, 32, was freed from detention “for humanitarian reasons,” Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s special envoy for talks with the United States, announced Tuesday on X. “He is currently on a US plane carrying him from Russia to Washington Dulles Airport.”
“ROBERT IS FREE!” his family wrote on their website. President Donald Trump said Gilman, accompanied by his mother, Nancy, would arrive at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Tuesday evening.
“After my discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him, very much on a Humanitarian Basis,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We appreciate this decision, and the fact that Russia asked for no one in return — No exchange took place.”
The Massachusetts man was arrested in 2022 for allegedly kicking a police officer while drunk during a train journey to Moscow. He was sentenced initially to 4½ years in a Russian penal colony.
Gilman’s family says he was violently ill when police encountered him in January 2022. “Instead of helping him,” the family wrote on its website, police hit him with a baton. “He was vomiting and falling, most likely due to a concussion,” they wrote, when “his leg accidentally hit one of the police officers’ shins.”
The State Department said Gilman’s release was not part of an exchange, and the United States made no other concessions.
“While we appreciate this positive step, we are still seeking the immediate return of all other unjustly detained Americans, including wrongful detainee Stephen Hubbard,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X.
Hubbard, 73, is the oldest of the more than five Americans still held in Russia. A retired English teacher, he was captured in April 2022 by Russian forces in the Ukrainian town of Izyum, accused of fighting for Ukraine and sentenced to six years and 10 months in prison.
Gilman’s family had raised alarms about his deteriorating health. “I am more afraid for my brother than I have been since this horrible nightmare started,” his sister, Lexie Hudson, said in a statement last week. “I’m worried that I may never see him again if the Russians don’t release him. I’m worried that he could die.”
According to Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Gilman had been diagnosed with “a dissociative stupor — a condition where he is non-responsive and unable to interact or eat.”
“He was essentially catatonic and also suffered a severe case of pneumonia,” Markey said in statement. “We don’t yet know the full details of his current condition or the long-term impact on his recovery.”
Trump and Rubio posted a photo of a gaunt Gilman seated in an airplane, his mother’s arm around his shoulder, surrounded by supporters who held an American flag in front of him. Trump, in his Truth Social post, said he had spoken to Gilman, who had one request: “A GREAT cheeseburger when he lands.”
Today, after more than four years of detention in Russia, Robert Gilman is on his way home to be reunited with his family. Mr. Gilman joins over 100 Americans whom President Trump has freed during his second term in office. We thank Russia for working with Special Envoy Steve… pic.twitter.com/tw9zDX6IMu
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 11, 2026
Gilman, who taught English in Poland, was in Russia visiting extended family before taking a new teaching job in Moldova, his family says. While in Russia, they say, he discovered his luggage and passport had been tampered with, and he had to replace missing passport pages before he could travel onward. He was traveling to Moscow to have his passport repaired at the U.S. Embassy, they say, when he was arrested.
While Gilman was imprisoned in Voronezh, some 330 miles south of Moscow, his family wrote, “he was goaded into additional actions and related charges through forced drugging, provocations, and torture, including forced exercise for 16 hours and six months in an extreme punishment cell.”
His initial sentence was reduced on appeal to 3½ years. But last year, he was accused of punching prison guards and an investigator. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than seven years.
“He appears to be caught up in an attempt to sentence him to the point where his only way out will be inclusion in a future prisoner exchange between the US and Russia,” his family wrote at the time.
On Tuesday, a new message appeared on the website. “After 1666 days in detention, Robert is finally free,” they wrote. “Thank you for your tireless support of Robert!”