In his first public comments since being freed after 5½ years in a Russian prison, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan had a message for other wrongfully detained Americans awaiting their releases.

"We're coming for you," he said to reporters Tuesday night after meeting with members of Congress on Capitol Hill. "The United States is not going to let people … languish in foreign prisons. It might take time, but we’re coming for ... everybody else.”

In August, Whelan was part of the largest U.S.-Russia prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War. Moscow freed 16 prisoners while Western countries released eight Russians.

Also among the Americans released were Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. 

Whelan said he met with lawmakers to thank those who helped secure his release and discuss how the U.S. government can better support detainees after their releases.

The 54-year-old Michigan native recently completed a government resettlement program in Texas.

"We spoke about how the next person's experience could be better, what the government could do for the next person that's held hostage and comes home, the care and support that other people might need, especially people that are in a worse situation,” Whelan said. “There are people coming back that lived in the dirt without shoes for three years, people that were locked up in hideous conditions for 20 years. They need support." 

Whelan was arrested on spying charges in December 2018 when he visited Moscow to attend a wedding. He was convicted in a secret trial in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Whelan denied the charges, and the U.S. government declared him to be wrongfully detained, a designation that directs government agencies to develop a strategy a secure someone’s release. 

But Whelan remained in prison even after Russia freed Marine veteran Trevor Reed and WNBA star Brittney Griner, both of whom were detained after him. The U.S. said it sought to secure Whelan’s release in both of those exchanges but the Kremlin refused.

Whelan said he was imprisoned in a “really remote part of Russia,” which he called “Camp Lost in the Woods.”

“It was five years, seven months and five days," he said. "I counted each one of them."

He spent the final five days before his release in solitary confinement.

“I couldn’t leave my cell, but I made it home,” Whelan said.

Whelan said “there’s a lot ahead” for him but that right now he’s still getting settled in. 

“One of the things I’m focused on is getting a new car,” he said. “So it’s that sort of minutiae that you have to focus on. But, you know, I have some plans. We’ll see what materializes.”

He told CNN the biggest adjustment so far to life back home is navigating new technology, giving his iPhone 15 Pro as an example.

“You slowly get back into those sorts of things,” he said. “But, yeah, the technology that's available — electric cars, people being conveyed around with driverless vehicles, electric vehicles, all that sort of thing.”