Key Points
- Russia freed Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher from Michigan held since 2022, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
- A plane carrying Hubbard landed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio late Wednesday, where he is to receive a medical evaluation.
- President Trump said no prisoner swap was needed. The Kremlin said Putin acted on Trump’s request and took Hubbard’s health into account.
- Hubbard was the last American the State Department had designated as wrongfully detained in Russia.
- A Kremlin aide said Russia is ready in principle to resume three-way talks with the U.S. and Ukraine around Nov. 10.
Stephen Hubbard, the retired American teacher who spent more than four years in Russian custody, is back on U.S. soil after Russia released him during a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff.
The 74-year-old Michigan native landed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, late Wednesday, Oct. 21. President Donald Trump told reporters he expected Hubbard to visit the White House “in the next day or so.”
What happened
The White House announced the release on X on Wednesday morning ET, saying Hubbard was “on his way back home and will soon be with his family.”
The handover came as Putin hosted Witkoff in St. Petersburg for talks on the war in Ukraine. At the start of the meeting, Putin said Hubbard had already been taken to the city’s Pulkovo Airport. Video released by Russian state media showed Hubbard shaking hands with Witkoff there and telling him, “Thank you very much for all your efforts.”
“Today, Stephen Hubbard is free and headed back home to his family,” Witkoff wrote on X, describing him as a retired teacher and U.S. Air Force veteran. The State Department said on X that Hubbard was heading home “after enduring four years of unjust detention.”
Trump said he asked Putin directly in a phone call last week to free Hubbard. In a Truth Social post quoted by CBS News, NBC News and the BBC, he wrote that the United States “was not required to give anything in return” and that “there was no ‘swap’ necessary for this release.”
Later on Wednesday, Trump linked the release to his decision last week to waive new sanctions on Russia just before they were due to take effect, writing that “if sanctions would have been placed, certainly those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt,” according to CBS News, NBC News and ABC News.
Latest development
Hubbard’s plane touched down late Wednesday night, according to NBC News, citing video from the base, and local station KSAT. He landed in San Antonio, where he will receive a medical evaluation, as is typical for Americans released from detention overseas, CBS News reported Thursday. CBS earlier reported he was in poor health.
“I want to embrace him as a son embraces his father. I want to personally assess his health to make sure he’s well,” his son, Joseph Coleman, told CBS News.
What Russia says
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin freed Hubbard for two reasons, Trump’s request and the American’s health, and acted out of humanitarian considerations, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant and the BBC.
Russian prosecutors accused Hubbard of signing a contract with a Ukrainian territorial defense unit and fighting as a mercenary after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. He was detained in eastern Ukraine that April and sentenced in 2024, after a closed trial, to nearly seven years in a penal colony. Hubbard’s family and lawyer have disputed the allegations.
Why it matters
Hubbard was the last American the State Department had formally designated as wrongfully detained in Russia. In a statement reported by CNN and the BBC, the department called the release “a welcome step that we hope leads to the release of all Americans unjustly held in Russia” and said “there are currently no Americans determined to be wrongfully detained in Russia.” Other U.S. citizens remain in Russian prisons without that designation.
Past releases of Americans held in Russia have often come through prisoner swaps, the BBC and The Guardian noted. Trump said this one required none.
The meeting drew criticism in Washington after Witkoff told Putin on camera: “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir.” Republican Sen. John Cornyn called Putin “a stone cold killer,” while Vice President JD Vance defended the envoy, saying he cared “much less about what Steve said” than about bringing an American home, according to ABC News and the BBC.
What happens next
Hubbard’s medical evaluation in San Antonio comes first. Trump has said he expects to host him at the White House soon; no time for that visit had been announced by Thursday morning ET.
On the diplomatic track, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin told Witkoff that Russia is “in principle” prepared to resume three-way negotiations with the United States and Ukraine “around the 10th of November,” focused on a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the war, Anadolu Agency reported. NBC News and NPR also reported a mid-November start. Witkoff called the meeting “constructive” and said trilateral talks at the technical level would follow, The Guardian reported.
Related live coverage
Follow U.S.-Russia diplomacy and the war in Ukraine on LiveNewsWorld’s World Breaking News Live, track the White House response on our U.S. politics live center, and find national news channels on the Watch Live hub.
Sources
- White House, U.S. State Department and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff statements on X (Oct. 21, 2026)
- CBS News: Hubbard released, and Hubbard lands back in U.S. (Oct. 21 and 22, 2026)
- NBC News: Russia frees American Stephen Hubbard as Trump envoy meets with Putin (Oct. 21, 2026)
- ABC News and BBC News reports on the release (Oct. 21, 2026)
- Anadolu Agency and Kommersant: Kremlin statements by Yuri Ushakov and Dmitry Peskov (Oct. 21, 2026)
