CNN
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American Kalob Byers, 28, who was recently arrested in Russia, has been released after several days in detention, according to a senior Trump administration official.
Byers, who was arrested at a Russian airport 10 days ago, was freed only hours before talks between senior US and Russian officials over the war in Ukraine were set to commence in Saudi Arabia.
As the Associated Press earlier reported, Byers was detained on February 7 at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport after customs officials allegedly found cannabis-laced marmalade in his baggage. According to media reports, Byers had traveled from Istanbul with his Russian fiancee, who was also detained. The authorities said he had attempted to smuggle a “significant amount” of drugs into the country and put him in custody on the charges of drug smuggling, punishable by a prison term of up to 10 years.
Byers has been released from custody and is in the US Embassy in Moscow, where he is awaiting a flight home, Russian independent news outlet Meduza reported Monday, citing a Facebook post by his parents. A US official confirmed to the Associated Press that Byers was released to the embassy late on Sunday evening. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive matters.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday in response to a question about Byers that Moscow expects “to discuss restoring the entire complex of Russian-American relations” at the talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, “so certain events can be viewed in this context.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Byers’ fiancee was also released. Russian media reports identified her as Naida Mambetova and said she was placed in pretrial detention on the same charges.
Byers’ release comes less than a week after that of Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained for more than three years in Russia.
Fogel had also faced drug charges. He was arrested in August 2021 at an airport in Moscow after he was found carrying cannabis, which his family and lawyer said was recommended by a doctor to treat “severe spinal pain.”
In June 2022, he was found guilty in a court just outside Moscow of committing “large-scale drugs smuggling” and given a 14-year sentence at a Russian hard labor camp.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who will be among the president’s top negotiators on Russia-Ukraine conflict, had pointed to Fogel’s release as “an indication of what the possibilities are” for the future of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“I think that’s maybe a sign about how that working relationship between President Trump and President Putin will be in the future, and what that may portend for the world at large, for conflict and so forth. I think they had a great friendship, and I think now it’s going to continue, and it’s a really good thing for the world,” he said Wednesday.
The Associated Press and CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
