Russia freed 74-year-old retired U.S. schoolteacher Stephen Hubbard from prison on Wednesday and took him to St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, President Vladimir Putin announced at a meeting with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff. According to Reuters, Putin made the announcement at the televised meeting in St. Petersburg without giving further details.
"The president sends his thanks, our whole nation sends their thanks, because of Stephen Hubbard," Witkoff told Putin. "Because of you he's going home to his family." Hubbard, from Michigan, had been serving a six-year-and-10-month prison sentence following a conviction for mercenary activity at a closed-door trial in October 2024. He was arrested in April 2022 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum, where Russian prosecutors alleged he had been manning a Ukrainian military checkpoint and had joined a territorial defense unit.
Hubbard's U.S.-based lawyer, Martin De Luca, thanked President Donald Trump, Witkoff and other U.S. officials for securing the release, calling it "a dividend earned along the hard road to peace." Trump confirmed the release in a Truth Social post, saying the U.S. was not required to give anything in return. Russian state media reported Hubbard pleaded guilty, but De Luca previously told Reuters that Hubbard said the charges were false and that he was not in any combat or military unit. As of Wednesday, Hubbard was the only U.S. prisoner held by Russia designated by Washington as "wrongfully detained."