Russia frees retired US schoolteacher Stephen Hubbard as Putin meets Witkoff

Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired US schoolteacher in Russian custody since 2022, was freed from prison on Wednesday and taken to St ‌Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, President Vladimir Putin said.

The Kremlin chief made the announcement at a meeting with US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg, without giving more details. "The president sends his thanks, our whole nation sends their thanks, because of Stephen ‌Hubbard," Witkoff told Putin in a televised meeting. "Because of you he's going home to his family."

Martin De Luca, ‌Hubbard's US-based lawyer, thanked President Donald Trump, Witkoff and other US officials for securing Hubbard's release in a statement, calling it "a dividend earned along the hard road to peace". Trump confirmed the release in a Truth Social post, saying the US was not required to give ⁠anything ​in return.

Hubbard, from Michigan, had ⁠been serving a prison sentence of six years and 10 months in Russia following a conviction for mercenary activity at a closed-door ⁠trial. 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.

Prosecutors said Hubbard had joined a Ukrainian territorial defence unit, received training, weapons and ⁠ammunition, and was promised $1,000 a month. Russian state media reported he pleaded guilty to the charges. But De Luca previously told Reuters Hubbard had ⁠told him ​the charges against him were false and that he was not in any combat or military unit.

In a 2024 interview with Reuters, Hubbard's sister, Patricia Fox Hubbard, also disputed the idea that her brother ⁠took up arms for any government, calling him "so non-military" and pointing out his advanced age. As of Wednesday, Hubbard was the ⁠only US prisoner held ⁠by Russia who was designated by Washington as "wrongfully detained".

The Trump administration secured the release last year of another American jailed in Russia, schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who had been serving ‌a 14-year prison ‌term for drug smuggling.