Mark Vogel had traveled back and forth with Russia multiple times before returning to his fateful final country in August 2021. He taught history for almost ten years to children, mostly at Anglo-American schools in Moscow.
However, upon entering Russia prior to what he had determined was his final year teaching at school, Vogel was arrested and accused of smuggling drugs. In June 2022, he was sentenced to 14 years in a security prison. In Russia, convicted murderers are given fewer sentences.
After lobbying by the US government, Vogel, now 63, was released Tuesday after three and a half years of detention.
He and his wife, Jane, were near-retirement global adventurers living in Colombia, Malaysia, Oman, Venezuela and Russia. But like basketball star Britney Griner and journalist Evan Gerkovic, other Americans imprisoned in Russia, he was in Moscow and Washington surrounding the February 2022 invasion of Russia's Ukraine. It became a pawn in the power struggle between them.
Until a year before his arrest, Vogel, like all teachers at Anglo-American schools, had diplomatic immunity. However, tensions rose along with the United States, and Russia stripped its protections to its teachers. In 2022, Russia forcibly closed schools and confiscated them.
Eric Rubin, a former American diplomat in Moscow, knows Vogel and is working to release him, saying he is “essentially a hostage situation.” He said Russian authorities suspected that Vogel was aware that he would carry a cannabis steam canister when he landed with his wife Jane at Sheremetyevo Airport near Moscow.
“This was definitely a setup,” Rubin said, and the penalty of penalty for similar crimes by Russian citizens who often take probation rather than prisons was “outrageous.” It's inconsistent.”
Vogel has a medical marijuana doctor's prescription and, according to a website the family claims, “he had planned to declare medical marijuana in Russian customs.” The site states that “Mark was suffering from physical illnesses including knee, hip and shoulder problems associated with severe back,” and displays x-rays showing pins and screws on the spine below. Masu.
None of these were important to Russian authorities, who are not aware of the medical use of marijuana, but the family's website states, “Russia previously had foreigners bring marijuana on a doctor's prescription.” He says that.
Vogel was tried in the same court as Griner, who was convicted of a similar crime and sentenced to nine years in prison. She was exchanged in December 2022 after being detained almost 10 months later with convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
After his conviction, Vogel was sent to a remote labor camp north of Moscow. This was a place where diplomats were more difficult to visit, and his family received substandard medical care and said “degradation is dramatic.” Last year, they said his “serious health issues”, their fear that his 95-year-old mother will never see him again, and “save him from saving the chances of dying in a Russian prison.” We talked about urgency.
The family was as mad at the Biden administration for not paying too much attention to Vogel's light form as Wall Street Journal Reporter Griner's light, which was released last August in Prisoner Swap. Or American Paul Werlan, who was detained in Russia from 2018 until his release with Gerszkovich. In effect, he abandoned him.
On a website calling for release, Vogel supporters said before being elected, President Trump had promised his mother that he “promised Mr. Vogel to return home.” At the end of December, the State Department said the US government had declared Vogel wrongly detained him. His family said it was postponed for three years.
“Now we have the full power of the US government behind us, so we have to do everything with our strength to bring Mark home safely as quickly as possible.” The family said in a statement after the announcement.
During a Senate confirmation hearing in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it would be impossible to improve relations between Washington and Moscow unless Vogel is released.
“If they don't try to do this,” Rubio said, “I think there's no possibility of improving relations between Russia and the US.”
