Russia frees US prisoner Stephen Hubbard as Trump claims Putin asked nothing in return ‘out of respect for me’
Russia has freed American prisoner Stephen Hubbard after more than four years behind bars, with Donald Trump bragging that Vladimir Putin asked for nothing in return ‘out of respect’ for him.
‘Stephen Hubbard, taken four years ago by Russia during the Biden Administration, was just released from prison,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning.
The release came ‘at the request of President Donald J. Trump, made directly to President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation last week,’ he added.
Trump claimed the US ‘was not required to give anything in return’ and that no prisoner swap was needed, while blasting Joe Biden’s team for getting nowhere with the Kremlin.
Hubbard, 74, a retired Michigan teacher, was seized by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in April 2022 and later jailed for nearly seven years on mercenary charges his family and US officials say were false.
He was the last American the State Department deemed wrongfully detained in Russia, and he was freed as Trump envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin in St Petersburg.
The release comes as Trump cozies up to Moscow, following he struck a deal earlier this month easing sanctions so Russia can sell diesel on world markets and bring down soaring fuel prices.
A day later he told Ukraine to find ‘a new leader who can make a deal,’ blaming Volodymyr Zelensky’s strikes on Russian refineries for high diesel prices.
Russia has freed American prisoner Stephen Hubbard after more than four years behind bars, with Donald Trump bragging that Vladimir Putin asked for nothing in return ‘out of respect’ for him
Hubbard with Steve Witkoff on Wednesday
Hubbard, 74, a retired Michigan teacher, was seized by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in April 2022 and later jailed for nearly seven years on mercenary charges his family and US officials say were false
The release comes as Trump cozies up to Moscow, following he struck a deal earlier this month easing sanctions so Russia can sell diesel on world markets
Zelensky has hit back at Trump by branding the diesel deal ‘a gift’ to Putin that would help bankroll Russia’s war.
Trump went further last Friday, signing an executive order to waive tough new sanctions and tariffs on Moscow under a law he had signed only last month.
The move sparked fury on both sides of the aisle, with Republican Sen. Thom Tillis calling it ‘beyond irresponsible.’
Trump claimed on Wednesday that talks to free Hubbard would have come to a ‘complete and total halt’ had he not waived the sanctions, undercutting his own boast that Russia asked for nothing.
Witkoff, meanwhile, hailed Putin as a ‘humanitarian’ during their recent talks in St Petersburg.
The diesel deal is Trump’s bid to tame fuel prices that have soared since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran that has cut off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
The narrow waterway carried around one-fifth of the world’s oil before the war, and it has still not reopened to normal commercial traffic.
Gas now averages about $4.28 a gallon nationwide, up from $2.98 before the war, while diesel is hovering above $6.
The pain at the pump has left Republicans facing the real prospect of losing both the House and the Senate in the midterms less than two weeks away.
