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.”
