Russia on Wednesday freed an American who had been jailed for more than four years on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, in a deal completed during a visit by a top US envoy and at a time when President Donald Trump has taken a series of actions meant to benefit Moscow.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call last week to free Stephen Hubbard, and that, unlike previous releases, the US did not have to give up anyone in return.
“Welcome home, Stephen, it’s great to have you back,” Trump said in the post.
Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher from Michigan, was on his way home following a visit to St Petersburg by US envoy Steve Witkoff, who also held talks with Putin about Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Trump pushes Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting.
Hubbard was sentenced in 2024 to nearly seven years in prison during closed court proceedings. Prosecutors said he had signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia’s invasion in 2022, and that he fought alongside Kyiv’s forces until being captured two months later.
The US government under the Biden administration designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained and his legal team has also disputed the Russian allegation, saying he was not involved in any military activity.
Putin called a ‘humanitarian’
Witkoff, a key Trump administration figure who has tried without success to steer Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement to end a war that will hit the five-year mark in February 2027, thanked Putin for releasing Hubbard, telling him, “Because of you, he’s going home to his family.”
“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir,” Witkoff said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media on Wednesday that Hubbard’s release was “raised by the American side for a certain time”, and Putin decided to free the man out of “humanitarian considerations”.
Speaking to reporters after the talks, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said the Kremlin leader had pardoned Hubbard who, upon his release, was taken to the St Petersburg airport, Pulkovo, for Witkoff to bring him home to the United States.
Video showed Witkoff and Hubbard shaking hands, with the newly released American thanking the envoy. Witkoff introduced Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev to Hubbard and described him as someone “who had a lot to do with this happening”.
“We just met President Putin, he sends you blessings and wishes you good things,” Witkoff added.
Hubbard, a US Air Force veteran, taught English overseas and retired in 2012 to Cyprus, where one of his sons is a Christian Orthodox priest. He later moved to Ukraine to be with a woman he had met, his lawyers said, remaining in the country after the relationship ended and living there at the time of Russia’s 2022 invasion.
His case was taken up by lawyers at the US-based law firm of Boies Schiller Flexner and the Russian firm of EPAM Law, which together had represented Marc Fogel, the American teacher freed from Russian custody last year, and worked for his release.
“They thought they weren’t going to see him again alive, and Stephen didn’t think he was going to come out of there alive,” Martin De Luca, one of Hubbard’s lawyers at the Boies Schiller firm, said in an interview about Hubbard’s family. “Obviously, they’re overjoyed but they feel very much like it’s a miracle.”
Others remain jailed
The release occurred at a dynamic moment in relations between the United States, Ukraine and Russia, with the Washington-Kyiv relationship being roiled by fresh tensions at the same time that the Trump administration has advanced policies that aid Putin.
Those include Trump’s move last week to waive sanctions on Russia imposed by a bill that Congress overwhelmingly passed to support Ukraine. Named after the late South Carolina Republican Sen Lindsey Graham, the legislation targeted the flow of financial resources fueling Moscow’s war. That decision followed Trump’s announcement of a deal to import Russian diesel fuel in a long-shot effort to curb high gas prices ahead of next month’s US midterm elections.
Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Norway on Tuesday. He was expected to exchange ideas from that meeting, as well as proposals from European and American colleagues, in his talks Wednesday with Russian leaders in St Petersburg.
Hubbard is the second American freed by Russia in roughly two months, following the release in August of Marine veteran Robert Gilman, who had been gravely ill and was imprisoned on disputed charges of assaulting a police officer.
Other Americans, including some with serious illnesses, remain jailed in Russia. Hubbard was the last remaining American designated as wrongfully detained, although advocates say that label should be applied to other prisoners.
Global Reach, an advocacy group that works to free Americans detained abroad and currently represents five Americans held in Russia, praised the release but called for the other prisoners to come home as well.
“We are grateful to the Trump Administration for reuniting Stephen Hubbard with his family but, at the same time, we know that there are five other families of Americans held in Russia who are going to have a hard time understanding why their loved one was not included in the deal,” Eric Lebson, the group’s chief strategy officer, said in a statement.
Hubbard had been imprisoned since 2022 on charges that Hostage Aid Worldwide, a hostage advocacy group, has called bogus.
Russia reported more arrests of foreigners in recent days. The Federal Security Service said Wednesday it detained a German national suspected of mercenary activities and last week announced arrests of a Swedish national suspected of sabotage and a Japanese journalist accused of espionage.
