Putin says Russia has freed US citizen, 74, jailed since 2022
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow has agreed to free the imprisoned US citizen Stephen Hubbard following a plea from US president Donald Trump.
Mr Hubbard, 74, had been held in Russian custody since April 2022 and was serving a nearly seven-year prison sentence in a penal colony for allegedly fighting on behalf of Ukraine, charges he denies.
Putin told US special envoy Steve Witkoff that the former schoolteacher was at the St Petersburg Pulkovo airport and waiting to fly back to the US with him. Witkoff thanked him for the goodwill gesture.
Witkoff flew into Russia’s second city on Wednesday morning to review new ideas on ending the war in Europe, with allies anxious that president Trump appears to be turning away from Kyiv while firming up relations with Moscow.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he had spoken to Putin about Hubbard, who had been declared wrongfully detained by the State Department.
“Just stick with me,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it, but everybody has been after Hubbard for a long time, long before I got here. And just remember that question for a couple of days from now, okay? Because I do things that nobody else can do.”
“Watch what happens. We have been focused on Hubbard.”
Trump also took the opportunity to pile more pressure onto Ukraine to cut a deal with Russia to end the four-year conflict.
“Ukraine has to want to settle this war,” he said, suggesting Moscow has the upper hand in the fight as “Russia is a big machine; they just keep grinding forward.”
Ties with Kyiv have been dented by Trump’s October 9 announcement that he would temporarily lift sanctions to allow Moscow to export diesel in a bid to help lower prices in the United States ahead of the November midterm elections.
Since the announcement, Ukraine has complained of disruption to some intelligence sharing and to its use of the Starshield military satellite system, though Zelensky said that a meeting with Witkoff in Oslo on Tuesday had reached an agreement to resolve the issues.
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