Russia on Thursday released a U.S. citizen who had crossed into its Kaliningrad exclave in the first weeks of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last February, former U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, who met the man at the border in Poland, said in a statement.
U.S. Navy veteran Taylor Dudley, 35, was backpacking in Europe when he crossed the Polish-Russian border in April, Jonathan Franks, a lawyer who represents families of Americans detained overseas, said in an email to reporters.
Dudley’s circumstances while in Russia were unclear and his case had not been previously publicized.
Kaliningrad is a Russian province sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania and is the headquarters of the Russian navy’s Baltic Fleet.