Chuck Zimmerman should be home by now, wherever he wanted that home to be.
Instead, the Roanoke Valley native and 1985 Salem High School graduate is stuck in a Russian prison, hostage ultimately to the whims of Vladimir Putin and whatever state the U.S.-Russian relationship might be at the moment, his fate overshadowed by the current U.S. military action against Iran.
Meanwhile, Zimmerman has developed health problems due to the poor diet prisoners in Russia are served, according to Kieran Ramsey, chief investigative officer for Global Reach, the nonprofit group that is working to secure Zimmerman’s release.
Zimmerman is now entering his second year of captivity with no apparent diplomatic progress in securing his release, and no official action by the Trump administration to designate Zimmerman as “wrongfully detained,” a legal distinction that holds some political weight.
For those not familiar with this story, here’s a recap (or you can get the full version in this previous column). Zimmerman grew up in the Roanoke Valley, went off to serve in the U.S. Navy and then had a civilian career as an electrician, most recently in North Carolina. By 2024, he had saved up enough money to fulfill a longtime ambition: to sail the world. He set off from New Bern, North Carolina, in July 2024 — we’re coming up on the second anniversary of his departure — and by that September had crossed the Atlantic to Spain. He spent some time exploring Europe — when you’re sailing, you can take the slow route — and by June 2025 was in the eastern Mediterranean. That’s when international politics started to intervene.
Zimmerman had planned to sail through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea and then on out into the Indian Ocean. However, Israel and Iran were bombing each other. Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen were attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Zimmerman could see the flashes of the bombs in the sky. It didn’t seem a good time to be sailing through a war zone. Instead, he decided to spend some time exploring the Black Sea. On June 17, 2025, a Russian naval vessel intercepted Zimmerman’s sailboat in international waters and forced him to port in Russia — essentially a kidnapping on the high seas. When the Russians searched his boat, they asked if he had any weapons on board. He said yes — a pistol and rifle that he had for self-defense. That was enough for the Russians to charge him with gun smuggling, convict him and sentence him to five years in prison. He is now in IK-9, a prison in Krasnodar Krai, about 60 miles from the fighting in Ukraine.
Academics who follow Russia say this has long been standard practice — they snatch up Westerners where they can and then hold them to trade for Russian prisoners being held abroad. These often result in uneven trades, the most famous example recently being where the American basketball star Brittney Griner (caught in Moscow with cannabis oil, a substance medically permissible in the United States) was swapped for Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer.
Zimmerman is not nearly as famous — he’s not famous at all — but he’s also not alone. At present, there are at least 10 Americans being held in Russia for one thing or another, according to Global Reach, which represents six of them. Since then, his sister, Robin Stultz, who lives in the Roanoke Valley, has been working with Global Reach to raise Zimmerman’s profile on the theory that more attention creates more political pressure on the American government to secure his release.
In March, a bipartisan delegation of Virginia lawmakers in Washington — Rep. Ben Cline, Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine — sent a joint letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to designate Zimmerman as “wrongfully detained.” That’s the legal language to denote political prisoners, and it also triggers some provisions of American law: to elevate the case to the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and to make financial resources available to the prisoner’s family to travel to Washington twice a year to speak with government officials.
So far, that designation has not happened and seems unlikely to happen. The U.S. government under Donald Trump hasn’t designated any Americans held in Russia as “wrongfully detained.” The Joe Biden administration designated seven; all were eventually released.
According to the Foley Foundation, a group that advocates for Americans held overseas, the Trump administration has designated 20 people elsewhere as wrongfully detained. Of those, most were in Venezuela, and all those have since been released, according to Elizabeth Richards, the foundation’s director of hostage advocacy and research.
So why hasn’t the Trump administration designated any Americans held in Russia as wrongfully detained?
This seems to be part of a strategy the administration has pursued to improve relations with Russia. “Our understanding is this administration is concerned that designating Americans held in Russia as wrongfully detained will hurt our bilateral relationship,” Richards says in an email. “However, when the Secretary of State designates an American as wrongfully detained, the captor country does not need to be notified of the designation. The designation is so the case is transferred to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs to work.”
She says concern about bilateral relations runs against the spirit of the law that created the wrongfully detained designation and its provisions: the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Act, passed in 2000 and named after a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran while on a mission for the CIA. On the contrary, that act intentionally created a separate office to handle detainees in foreign prisons “so the issue of Americans being held hostage by nation-states would not have to compete against other regional priorities,” she says.
Warner faults Trump for being too cozy with Putin. “When we spend all our time on macro issues, we don’t do enough to protect Americans,” Warner said during a recent appearance in Wise County. “It is more than weird to me that Donald Trump — who at least I give him credit, he’s an equal opportunity offender — is willing to call out people in both parties, he’s willing to trash everyone, except for Vladimir Putin. And I think the American people ought to figure out why that is the case.”
In a formal statement to Cardinal, Warner said: “I, alongside Senator Kaine and Congressman Cline, continue to engage the State Department regarding Chuck Zimmerman’s case. A ‘wrongfully detained’ designation would aid in the administration’s ongoing efforts to engage the Russians on his case and provide full assistance to his family. We will continue to press for efforts to ensure safe and fair treatment, and that ultimately lead to his release.”
Kaine said much the same: “I’ve repeatedly joined colleagues from both sides of the aisle in urging the Administration to immediately designate these individuals as wrongfully detained and negotiate their releases.”
The State Department did not provide an on-the-record response about Zimmerman’s case and did not respond at all to a follow-up inquiry about why the Trump administration has not designated any Americans being held in Russia as “wrongfully detained.”
Global Reach says the designation would be important.
“Just because Chuck is not designated doesn’t mean the administration is not working to bring him home,” Ramsey of Global Reach said. “We accept that. However, having that designation is important because it obligates the government to help.” It would help reimburse the prisoner’s family for travel to Washington to meet with government officials — otherwise, they have to pay out of pocket.
“Beyond its operational impact, designation provides powerful symbolic recognition,” says the Foley Foundation.
More government attention to the Zimmerman case has resulted in one modest development.
After the joint Cline/Warner/Kaine letter, the consular officer at the U.S. embassy in Moscow telephoned Zimmerman in prison, the first and so far only contact Zimmerman has had with U.S. officials since he was captured at sea. Unfortunately, Ramsey says, “it was a disappointing call to Chuck. The consular phone call didn’t leave much hope in Chuck’s mind.” It’s unclear whether the embassy has tried more than once to speak to Zimmerman.
His situation at the moment does not seem hopeful.
Zimmerman developed a dental problem when in Russian custody and recently had a tooth removed by a prison dentist. “His health is deteriorating,” Ramsey says. A Russian prison does not exactly serve a health club menu.
After more than a year of captivity, “we’re seemingly nowhere closer to getting Chuck put on a plane to come home,” Ramsey says. He’d like to see “more consistent action” by the U.S. government.
“I’m not being critical of the quiet professionals in the background,” Ramsey said, but “there is seemingly a gap between the commander-in-chief’s public statements, President Trump saying he wants to bring Americans home, and what’s happening.”
Ramsey says the U.S.-Iran war has not been helpful. “It has seemingly taken all the attention away from Americans sitting in Russia,” he said. “The U.S. government should be able to do two things at the same time. While Iran is going on, the plight of these Americans in Russia has seemingly dropped to a second priority.”
Ramsey thinks “more of a priority could be placed” on Zimmerman’s case. In particular, he’d like to see Trump become more familiar with it. “When he knows the name of a hostage, this hostage comes home,” Ramsey says. “Ben Cline’s office has been extremely helpful and Rep. Cline has a different relationship than Senators Kaine and Warner” — diplomatic-speak for Cline is a Republican while the two senators are Democrats. However, “that doesn’t mean he’s going to be able to get the right amount of attention on any given day.”
For his part, Cline says in a statement that “I am committed to exhausting every possible avenue to secure Chuck Zimmerman’s release from his unlawful prosecution and detention in a Russian prison. My office remains in regular contact with both the State Department as well as Chuck’s family as we continue to elevate Chuck’s wrongfully detained status.”
In May, Zimmerman’s photo was in the U.S. Capitol as part of a display of other Americans held overseas. And, ultimately, we don’t know what, if anything, is happening behind the scenes.
“I think about and worry about my brother every day in a Russian prison,” Stultz said in a statement. “I can’t imagine how lonely he must feel but my biggest concern has been his health. Knowing that he is not getting a proper diet and a rationed size portion of food makes it hard for me to sit down to eat dinner every night.”
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