Robert Woodland was found guilty in July 2024 of attempting to sell drugs after he was arrested while transporting about 50g of mephedrone, a stimulant drug in the same class as amphetamine, to a safe cache in Moscow, prosecutors said.

His lawyer, Stanislav Kshevitsky, previously told Reuters that Woodland had partially admitted guilt.

It was not immediately clear why his sentence was lowered.

Born in Russia in 1991 and adopted as a toddler by American parents, Woodland returned to his birth country as an adult to meet his biological mother, he told a Russian newspaper in 2020.

Woodland is one of at least 10 Americans remaining behind bars in Russia following a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington earlier this month.

That exchange saw the freeing of Ksenia Karelina, a dual Russian-US citizen and Los Angeles spa worker serving a treason sentence, for Arthur Petrov, a German-Russian citizen accused by Washington of exporting sensitive microelectronics from the US to Russia.

Earlier this month, a different Russian court slightly reduced the sentence of US soldier Gordon Black, who was jailed last year for stealing US$113 from his girlfriend and threatening to kill her.