Russia frees retired Michigan teacher Stephen Hubbard as a U.S. envoy sits down with Putin

Stephen Hubbard is finally on his way home. Russia let the 74-year-old American go on Wednesday after holding him for more than four years and the news broke just as a White House envoy opened talks with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg about ending the war in Ukraine.

Putin told the room that Hubbard had already been freed and was waiting at Pulkovo Airport on the edge of the city. Envoy Steve Witkoff thanked the Russian leader on camera, saying the whole country was grateful and that Hubbard would soon be reunited with his family.

Who Stephen Hubbard is

Hubbard grew up in Michigan and spent his career in the classroom before retiring. He also served in the Air Force and the National Guard. He was living in Ukraine when Russia launched its full invasion in February 2022 and Russian forces picked him up in the east of the country shortly afterward.

Russian prosecutors claimed he had worked a checkpoint for foreign fighters. After a closed trial in 2024 a Moscow court gave him close to seven years in a penal colony on mercenary charges. His family always said he was innocent and heard from him only rarely during his years behind bars.

The State Department had formally classified him as wrongfully detained. That made him the last American in Russia with that label, though as many as 10 other U.S. citizens and dual nationals are still in Russian custody. Hubbard is in poor health and is expected to be flown to a military hospital in Texas for care.

The White House takes credit

President Donald Trump said he asked Putin directly in a phone call last week to let Hubbard go. In a social media post early Wednesday he said Washington gave up nothing in return and that no prisoner swap was needed.

Trump also tied the release to his decision days earlier to waive a new round of sanctions on Moscow just before they were set to kick in. That move drew sharp criticism in Congress from members of both parties. Trump argued that the talks to free Hubbard would have collapsed if the sanctions had gone forward.

Talks over the war go on

The release lands in the middle of a fresh push by the administration to broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine. Before flying to Russia, Witkoff and other U.S. negotiators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in Oslo. Witkoff told Putin he had brought papers laying out possible paths to a settlement and hoped Moscow would agree to three-way talks.

Critics in both parties have warned that the White House is leaning too far toward Moscow. Russian strikes on Ukraine continued on Wednesday as the talks took place.

Part of a string of releases

Hubbard is the latest American to walk out of a Russian prison in recent years. Former Marine Robert Gilman was freed in August after his health became life threatening. School teacher Marc Fogel came home last year. In 2024 reporter Evan Gershkovich and veteran Paul Whelan were released in a large multi-country exchange.

The State Department still warns Americans not to travel to Russia at all because of the risk of being detained without cause.