Russia frees ailing ex-US marine after Putin’s ‘goodwill’ pardon

Moscow on ⁠Tuesday 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 could receive medical treatment in the United States.Gilman was being held in a prison in Voronezh, about ‌340 miles (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, said 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”.Former US marine Robert Gilman attends a court hearing in Voronezh, Russia, in April. Gilman, who served in the US Marines from August 2019 until August 2020, ‌was arrested in January 2022 in Voronezh. Photo: ReutersThe US officials said Gilman on Tuesday was on a State Department plane carrying him from Russia to Washington Dulles Airport.