Trump envoy thanks Putin for releasing US national

Stephen Hubbard, a US Air Force veteran, was sentenced to nearly seven years in a Russian prison on mercenary charges and fighting for Ukraine

US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for releasing US Air Force veteran Stephen Hubbard, who had been convicted in Russia on charges of fighting for Ukraine.

Witkoff thanked Putin on Wednesday during talks with the Russian leader at Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg. He expressed gratitude on behalf of Trump and the American people for freeing Hubbard, adding that he had met Hubbard’s son, a priest at a Greek Orthodox church, several days earlier and discussed his father’s detention.

Putin responded that Hubbard was already at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, preparing to leave the country.

Hubbard, 74, is a retired Michigan schoolteacher and US Air Force veteran. He was detained by Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Izyum in April 2022, shortly after Moscow launched its military operation. Hubbard had been living in Ukraine with his Ukrainian partner since 2014, the year hostilities in Donbass erupted following a Western-backed coup in Kiev.

In 2024, a Russian court sentenced him to six years and ten months in prison on mercenary charges over joining a Ukrainian territorial defense unit and fighting for Kiev in exchange for $1,000 a month.

Hubbard’s sister claimed that he held pro-Russian views, was a non-military pacifist, and was highly unlikely to take up arms.

On Tuesday, Trump said he had personally asked Putin to release Hubbard. “I don’t ⁠want to talk about it, but everybody has been after Hubbard for a long time, long before I got here… Watch what happens. We have been focused ⁠on Hubbard,” he told reporters at the time.

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