He’s coming home. Russia has released Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American and former teacher from Michigan, as President Vladimir Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday, the BBC reported.
Putin delivered the news right at the top of the meeting. “He is at Pulkovo Airport,” he told Witkoff in front of the cameras, Axios reported. President Trump then posted that Hubbard was “on his way back home” and that “there was no ‘swap’ necessary,” saying the release followed a request he “made directly” to Putin last week. Some earlier releases of Americans from Russia came through prisoner swaps.
Hubbard was captured by Russian forces in Izyum, Ukraine, shortly after the 2022 full-scale invasion. He was accused of serving in a defence unit there and was sentenced in 2024 to almost seven years in a penal colony. The State Department had classified him as “wrongfully detained.” CBS News reported he had been in poor health and was expected to be flown to Texas for treatment.
And the politics? Witkoff gushed: “You are a humanitarian also sir, and I salute that.” He also asked Putin to consider renewing three-way peace talks with Ukraine and thanked him for a deal to import Russian diesel. Trump suggested that if sanctions had gone ahead, Hubbard talks “would have come to a complete and total halt.” AP noted the release comes as Trump has taken a series of actions meant to benefit Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote that “much depends on whether the American side can hear something new from Russia today – about peace, and not about continuing the war.” One man is free. The war grinds on into its fifth year.
Featured image: editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.
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