Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned an Israeli-American woman jailed over drug charges as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Moscow.

Naama Issachar was jailed for seven and a half years last April, prompting anger in Israel at the harshness of a sentence for a small amount of hashish was found in her luggage during a layover in Moscow airport.

Shet was granted a pardon by Mr Putin on Wednesday, having served 10 months.

Mr Netanyahu began his visit to Moscow on Thursday, and Ms Issachar is set to return to Israel on his plane.

He tweeted footage of them meeting, along with Ms Issachar’s mother Yaffa, with the caption “Naama, coming home”.

He also said of his “important work meeting” with Mr Putin that “Russia-Israel relations are the strongest and best they have ever been”.

Mr Putin said Russia and Israel’s “bilateral relations are improving in the field of the economy and humanitarian ties,” adding that he granted Ms Issachar a pardon in part because of a letter from her mother, and that “she was lucky in that she had not crossed the Russian border” with the drugs.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that he was “so happy to get the news of President Putin's decision to pardon Naama, and I thank him for the wisdom and mercy of the decision”.

According to Haaretz, a senior Israeli official involved in the matter said Israel had not signed a deal with Russia to secure the release but it was “as a gesture by President Vladimir Putin to Netanyahu.”

The newspaper also reported that Alexei Kovalenko, a member of Ms Issachar’s legal team, said: “To date, the Russian president has never granted a pardon to a foreign national.”