Russia frees retired American teacher as Trump envoy meets with Putin

Russia has released retired American teacher Stephen Hubbard, 74, the latest sign of warmer ties between the two countries as Washington pressures Kyiv to agree to a deal to end Moscow’s war.

The news of Hubbard’s release came as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with President Vladimir Putin early Wednesday in St. Petersburg. In remarks aired on Russian state news agencies, Putin said that Hubbard was at the airport and Witkoff lauded the Russian leader for his release. “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir,” Witkoff said.

The U.S. has courted the Kremlin for weeks, and the release of Hubbard — a retired Michigan schoolteacher detained in Ukraine in 2022 — will give President Donald Trump a victory to tout after backlash at home and abroad for his tilt away from Kyiv in the conflict.

Trump said Tuesday that he had appealed to Putin to release Hubbard, who was being held on charges he denies of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. He was the last American designated as “wrongfully detained” in Russia by the State Department.

Image: Stephen Hubbard smiling. — Stephen Hubbard.Trisha Hubbard / via Facebook

The meeting between Putin and Witkoff, which Jared Kushner was expected to join virtually, came after the American negotiators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

Ukraine brought forward new ideas and proposals at those talks, a U.S. official told NBC News, adding that “meaningful progress” was made as the Trump administration intensifies its peace push.

Diplomacy has made little headway for months, and this renewed American effort has drawn widespread criticism as Trump announced a series of moves to bolster Russia while Ukraine accused the U.S. of withdrawing crucial support.

“We want Zelenskyy to make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, intensifying a pressure campaign that has fueled concern the U.S. is no longer committed to Kyiv’s defense against its Moscow invaders. “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss,” Trump said.

Witkoff told Putin on Wednesday that “groundwork” had been laid for ending the fighting, and that he had brought documents outlining approaches to a possible deal. He also said he hoped that the Russian leader would consider resuming trilateral talks.

Image: Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev shake hands next to a plane. — Witkoff was greeted by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the international airport outside St. Petersburg on Wednesday.TASS via AP

Zelenskyy said that a potential trilateral leaders’ meeting was “one of the important ideas” raised in Oslo after Tuesday’s talks, which also included the leaders of Norway and Finland.

Putin has so far insisted any meeting with Zelenskyy could only happen once a deal is finalized and take place in Moscow, a nonstarter for the Ukrainians. The Kremlin has also shown little sign of shifting from its hardline demands, which include seizing Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region.

Trump signed a diesel deal with Russia earlier this month and waived new sanctions on Moscow, while Kyiv says it received no advanced warning about at least three major Russian attacks and that restrictions on Elon Musk’s Starshield satellite service continue to hamper its aerial defenses and battlefield operations.

Image: President Volodymyr Zelensky hugs Steve Witkoff, as Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finnish President Alexander Stubb look on. — Zelenskyy and Witkoff embrace, accompanied by Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, right, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, left, during their meeting in Oslo on Tuesday.Heiko Junge / AFP via Getty

After the talks with Witkoff on Tuesday, Zelenskyy told reporters the recent issues on security cooperation with the U.S. have been resolved.

“We are thankful that intelligence works now — I am speaking about early warning systems, which are very important for our people, for our children and civilians,” he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the talks in Oslo “positive,” but said “nothing unexpected” came out of them. “Armed with those ideas,” Witkoff will go to St. Petersburg, Rubio said, and share them with the Russian side “and let’s see if we can make some progress.”

Image: Destroyed cars among debris in a residential building courtyard. — Destroyed cars among debris in the courtyard of a residential building following a Russian drone attack on Kyiv on Wednesday.Serhii Okunev / AFP via Getty

Rubio once again denied that the White House was behind any slowdown to Ukraine’s use of the internet service, saying this was an issue for Musk and SpaceX. Musk himself said last week any decision was down to Trump.

Deadly Russian attacks continued to hit Ukraine, meanwhile, with at least nine civilians killed across the country on Wednesday as Moscow ramps up its strikes on energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

Authorities in Russia’s border Bryansk region said Wednesday that one person was killed in a Ukrainian strike.

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