US President Donald Trump secretly instructed his special representative on the Middle East Steven Whitkoff to establish a “peace process” between Ukraine and Russia. The White House on February 11 confirmed that the specialized US President Donald Trump President in the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, flew to Moscow and agreed to liberate the American Mark Vogel. An unexpected exchange according to the American side, Vogel, detained in Russia in 2021 and later convicted on charges of drug smuggling, returns to the United States as part of the “exchange” with Moscow, but whom the United States will be released in return is still unknown. “President Donald Trump and his special messenger Steve Whitkoff may announce that Whitkoff is leaving the airspace of Russia along with Mark Vogel, an American who was detained by Russia. President Trump, Steve Whitkoff and presidential advisers held an exchange that serves as a demonstration of goodwill by Russians and a sign that we are moving in the right direction to put an end to a brutal and terrible war in Ukraine, ”the Trump adviser said in a statement of Trump's adviser. Whitkoff, apparently, flew to Moscow on Tuesday at the Gulfstream G650er business jet, which Russian and Ukrainian journalists previously wrote to the Russian capital.. The Kremlin stated that he did not have information about the arrival of Whitkoff. Whitkoff, who had previously played a key role in concluding a truce between Israel and the Hamas group in the Gaza Strip, became the first senior American official who visited Moscow in recent years. Who is Fogel, a former employee of the US Embassy, \u200b\u200bMark Vogel, who worked as a teacher at the Anglo-American school in Moscow, was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport in August 2021. It was reported that in his luggage he found marijuana and hash oil. In the summer of 2022, Vogel was sentenced to 14 years in prison for drug smuggling. He rejected all the accusations. “We are very grateful, we are facilitating and shocking that after more than three years of imprisonment, our father, husband and son Mark Fogel finally returns home,” the American family said in a statement. Russian authorities have not commented on the release of Vogel and the possible exchange.

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