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Russia releases US citizen Stephen Hubbard after Witkoff visit

newsOct 21, 2026232,422

Russia released 74-year-old American Stephen Hubbard, Vladimir Putin said, and Hubbard was taken to Pulkovo Airport during a meeting in St Petersburg with US envoy Steve Witkoff. Hubbard, from Michigan, was sentenced in 2024 to almost seven years after Russian authorities accused him of serving in a defence unit around Izyum and being captured after Moscow's 2022 full-scale invasion. President Donald Trump said Hubbard was "on his way back home," claimed he had asked Putin directly for the release, and said no prisoner swap was necessary. US officials had previously classified Hubbard as "wrongfully detained." CBS reported Hubbard had been in poor health and was expected to be flown to Texas for treatment. Witkoff praised Putin during the meeting, saying "you are a humanitarian also sir, and I salute that," and Russian state media said the pair also discussed diesel shipments, fertiliser supplies, Iran, and a possible meeting in China. Putin said the first shipment under a new diesel agreement would leave Russia in two to three days; Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky publicly criticised the diesel deal and earlier accused Washington of halting intelligence sharing, a claim the US rejected and Zelensky later said had been resolved after talks in Oslo.

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