Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, has renewed his request that Secretary of State Marco Rubio designate a former Salem man being held in Russia as “wrongfully detained.”
Earlier this year, Cline and Virginia’s two U.S. senators, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, sent a joint letter to Rubio requesting the designation for Chuck Zimmerman, which in legal terms defines someone as a political prisoner.
On Thursday, Cline sent another letter to Rubio to make another push. The letter came a day after Russia released the only American prisoner it held who the U.S. government has said is “wrongfully detained.” There are at least five other Americans being held in Russia, including Zimmerman, a 1985 graduate of Salem High School who still has family in the Roanoke Valley.
“I ask again that your department designate Chuck as wrongfully detained by the Russian government and continue to consider him in the ongoing negotiations with the Russian government,” Cline wrote in the letter, which was made available to Cardinal News by Global Reach, the nonprofit group representing Zimmerman.
The Trump administration has designated Americans held in other countries as “wrongfully detained” but has declined to do so for American prisoners in Russia. Foreign policy analysts say this reluctance is part of the Trump administration’s attempts to improve relations with Russia. Stephen Hubbard, the Michigan man released by Russia this week, had been designated as wrongfully detained by the Biden administration.
Hubbard’s release — but not the release of other Americans — prompted some criticism of the Trump administration’s approach. Earlier this week, Eric Lebson of Global Reach issued this statement: “When former Marine Robert Gilman was released near death in August, the Russians made it clear that they only consider releasing Americans after they have been designated.” He called on the Trump administration to designate all the Americans held in Russia as “wrongfully detained.” Multiple foreign policy analysts say that Russia has long made it a practice to detain foreigners, especially Americans, who they can then trade as part of some diplomatic deal. “It’s a business for them,” said Mark N. Katz, a professor emeritus at George Mason University through the Schar School for Policy and Government.
After Zimmerman graduated from Salem High School, he joined the U.S. Navy, where he learned the electrical trade. He was working in North Carolina when his mother died. With an inheritance, he decided to pursue a lifelong dream of sailing the world and set off in 2024 on a sailboat for a new job in New Zealand. He made a side trip in June 2025 to the Black Sea, where the Russian Navy intercepted him in international waters and forced him to port, where he was later arrested on a weapons smuggling charge on the grounds that he had a pistol and rifle for self-defense on his boat. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Zimmerman’s family says his health has deteriorated because of a dental issue that hasn’t been properly treated in prison. Cline’s letter to Rubio noted that the U.S. government recently canceled Zimmerman’s passport because he hasn’t made child support payments, something he can’t do from a Russian prison. Global Reach said the passport cancellation was an automatic move but one that highlighted the need for Zimmerman’s case to be elevated to higher levels in the State Department.
Read more about Zimmerman’s case here.
