After more than four years behind bars in Russia, Stephen Hubbard is on his way home. The 74-year-old American was freed on Wednesday, October 21, during a meeting in St. Petersburg between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The release came on the same day the Kremlin signaled it was ready, in principle, to restart three-way peace talks with the United States and Ukraine.
Here is what we know about Hubbard, how his release unfolded, and why it is tangled up in the larger debate over sanctions and the war in Ukraine.
Who is Stephen Hubbard?
Hubbard is a Michigan native, a retired school teacher and a veteran who served in the U.S. National Guard and Air Force. According to CBS News, he was captured in Ukraine shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian authorities accused him of manning a checkpoint for mercenaries, and in 2024 he was sentenced to almost seven years in a penal colony.
His family had little contact with him during his detention and has always maintained his innocence. The U.S. State Department had formally declared him wrongfully detained, and CBS reports he was the last American in Russia with that designation. As many as 10 other Americans, including dual nationals, remain in Russian custody.
How the release happened
The news broke while Witkoff and other Trump administration officials were in St. Petersburg for talks focused on the Ukraine war. Russian state news agencies, citing Putin, said Hubbard was at the city’s Pulkovo Airport, and Witkoff and President Trump later shared a photo of him aboard a plane with U.S. officials.
CBS News reports that Hubbard is in poor health and was expected to be flown to Texas for treatment at a military hospital.
In video of the meeting, Witkoff thanked Putin directly. “Because of you, he’s going home to his family,” he said, according to CBS. He also called the Russian leader “a humanitarian,” a remark that quickly drew criticism from commentators given Putin’s role in ordering the invasion of Ukraine.
Trump: “no ‘swap’ necessary”
President Trump announced the release on Truth Social, saying Hubbard was freed at his request, made directly to Putin in a phone call the previous week. He stressed that the U.S. “was not required to give anything in return” and that there was “no ‘swap’ necessary.”
Later on Wednesday, though, the president tied the release to his decision last week to halt new sanctions on Russia just before they were due to take effect. Speaking on the White House South Lawn, Trump said that if he had imposed those sanctions in the middle of negotiations, “you would not have Mr. Hubbard coming back.” That sanctions pause had drawn sharp criticism from members of Congress in both parties.
Kremlin says talks could restart
Hubbard’s release was not the only development out of St. Petersburg. Following the Putin-Witkoff meeting, the Kremlin said Russia was ready in principle to resume trilateral talks with the U.S. and Ukraine from mid-November, according to a daily world news roundup from One Turn. Moscow said it would consider U.S. economic proposals but would not make political concessions, and a Kremlin aide said a summit involving Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump was being prepared.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, called for the front line to be frozen along current positions as a first step toward negotiations and insisted that Kyiv must have a seat at any talks. Resumed three-way talks would be the first formal negotiation of that kind in months.
A pattern of releases
Hubbard is the latest in a series of Americans freed from Russian custody. CBS notes that former Marine Robert Gilman was released in August after his health deteriorated, following a direct appeal from Trump to Putin. Teacher Marc Fogel was freed early last year, and in 2024 journalist Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan came home as part of a complex multi-country prisoner exchange.
The State Department still keeps a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory in place for Russia, warning Americans of the risk of wrongful detention and limited consular help.
What to watch next
For Hubbard’s family, the immediate focus is his health and recovery after years in a Russian penal colony. For everyone else, the bigger questions are diplomatic: whether the Kremlin follows through on mid-November talks, whether Ukraine gets the seat at the table Zelensky is demanding, and how the sanctions debate in Washington plays out now that the White House has publicly linked it to a prisoner’s freedom.
One American is home. The harder work of ending the war is still ahead.
Image: St Petersburg Russia by GuyDeckerStudio via Flickr, CC0 1.0
