Moscow has freed Robert Gilman, a former U.S. Marine and English teacher imprisoned in Russia, after President Vladimir Putin approved a pardon for the ailing American based on humanitarian reasons, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing U.S. officials.
Gilman’s release comes after his family had appealed to the Russian authorities for his release, warning that he was “near death” following months of alleged torture in prison. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also said to have raised Gilman’s imprisonment with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in the Philippines last month.
U.S. officials told Reuters that Gilman, who was said to be walking and talking, would be transported on a State Department plane from Russia to Washington Dulles Airport. “All things considered, he seems to be in good shape,” one official told the news agency.
Gilman will be evaluated on the flight back to the United States by four doctors, the U.S. officials said. His mother, Nina, was also on board. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and deputy national security adviser Sebastian Gorka are expected to meet them at Dulles.
After that, Gilman will be flown to a rehabilitation center in San Antonio, Texas, for medical treatment, the U.S. officials added.
Moscow has not commented on the Reuters report. As of Tuesday afternoon, no official document showing Putin had pardoned Gilman was published on the Kremlin’s website.
Gilman, 32, was arrested in January 2022 in Voronezh after an incident in which he was accused of assaulting a police officer. A court sentenced him to two years in prison that October.
In December, a judge in Voronezh handed him an additional eight-year prison sentence for allegedly attacking guards at the correctional facility where he was being held.
Reuters reported last week that Gilman had slipped into a state assessed as “dissociative stupor” in late June and was transferred from a prison hospital to the psychiatric ward at a civilian hospital in the southern city of Voronezh.
Kieran Ramsey, chief investigator of the hostage advocacy group Global Reach, told PBS Newshour on Monday that the “treatment that [Gilman] has suffered at the hands of the Russian prison guards has been far worse than anything else we have seen before.”
Global Outreach had claimed that Gilman was unable to communicate, his eyes remained shut and he was being fed through a feeding tube. Ramsey said the organization was receiving updates on Gilman through his family and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
The Moscow Times has contacted the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for comment.
Gilman’s lawyer Irina Brazhnikova confirmed to Russian media that he has been held in a psychiatric ward at a civilian hospital since early July. The hospital has reportedly barred Gilman’s mother from visiting him despite a court order allowing her to do so.
Before his release on Tuesday, Gilman was among at least eight U.S. citizens jailed in Russia whom the Trump administration is trying to have released.
Reuters contributed reporting.
