Russia frees ailing ex-US marine Robert Gilman from detention

WASHINGTON – Moscow on Aug 11 freed a former US marine jailed in Russia since 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a pardon for the ailing American based on humanitarian reasons, US officials said.

The White House and the State Department had urged Moscow to release Robert Gilman, 32, so he can receive medical treatment in the US.

Gilman was being held in a prison in Voronezh, about 550km south of Moscow.

The exact circumstances of his health are unclear.

But Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer of Global Reach, an advocacy group representing Gilman’s family, told Reuters last week that Gilman was moved in late June from the prison hospital to the psychiatric ward of a civilian emergency hospital in a catatonic-like state assessed as a “dissociative stupor”.

The US officials said Gilman on Aug 11 was on a State Department plane carrying him from Russia to Washington Dulles International Airport.

A US official who spoke to Gilman said he was walking and talking.

“All things considered, he seems to be in good shape,” the official said.

Gilman will be evaluated on the flight by four doctors, said the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. His mother, Nina, was also on board.

The US officials said Gilman, upon arrival at Dulles, will be greeted by US envoy Steve Witkoff and Deputy National Security Adviser Sebastian Gorka, both of whom had sought Gilman’s release along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, US special envoy for hostage response Adam Boehler and other officials.

After that, Gilman is likely to be flown to a rehabilitation centre in San Antonio, Texas, for medical treatment, the officials said.

Arrested over police officer incident

Gilman, who served in the US Marines from August 2019 until August 2020, was travelling by train when he was arrested in January 2022 in Voronezh, Lebson said.

He was detained for allegedly kicking a police officer while drunk, according to Russian state media.

However, his father, Vladimir Gilman, who emigrated to the US from Russia, wrote in an October 2024 Boston Globe op-ed that the charges were false.

His son, he said, had fallen ill when the incident occurred and accidentally kicked the officer.

The officer was uninjured, dropped the charges and did not present evidence at Gilman’s trial, he wrote.

Robert Gilman was sentenced to 4½ years in jail. He was one of at least 10 Americans known to be imprisoned in Russia.

The US officials said a Russian senior official, Yuri Ushakov, informed Trump aides last week that Putin had agreed to sign a decree pardoning Gilman for humanitarian purposes, given Putin’s friendship with the US President.

The release resulted from intense negotiations over the weekend by US and Russian officials. The US did not exchange any Russian prisoners to gain Gilman’s release and no concessions were made, the officials said.

“It’s a goodwill gesture,” one official said.

A US State Department spokesperson said Gilman had been recently designated as wrongfully detained and that it was hoped that another American with the same designation, Stephen Hubbard, would now be released along with other Americans “unjustly held in Russia”.

Hubbard, a retired schoolteacher, was sentenced in October 2024 to almost seven years in a penal colony after a court found him guilty of serving in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit against Russian forces, tasked with manning a checkpoint.

Hubbard denied the charge. REUTERS