Stephen Hubbard back in U.S. after release from Russian prison

Stephen Hubbard, the Michigan native who spent four years wrongfully imprisoned in Russia before being released on Wednesday, landed back in the U.S. late Wednesday, according to President Trump.

The president said Hubbard had just landed back in the U.S. while Mr. Trump spoke to reporters late Wednesday night as he returned from a rally in South Carolina. He expected Hubbard to visit the White House “in the next day or so.”

“He’s obviously just got out of prison,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “He was there for a long time.”

Hubbard’s release was announced earlier Wednesday during a meeting between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hubbard was imprisoned in Russia for more than four years after being accused of fighting for Ukraine. The U.S. government had deemed Hubbard wrongfully detained.

In a brief phone call with his father before Hubbard took off from St. Petersburg, his son, friar Joseph Coleman said he sounded better than he had during their last conversation in May 2025.

“I want to embrace him as a son embraces his father. I want to personally assess his health to make sure he’s well,” Coleman said.

Hubbard, 74, is landed in San Antonio, where he will receive a medical evaluation, as is typical for prisoners released from overseas.

Hubbard, a retired schoolteacher, was captured in Ukraine shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022 and was accused of manning a checkpoint for mercenaries. He was later sentenced to almost seven years in a penal colony. His family has always disputed the charges.

Mr. Trump said in social media posts that Putin agreed to release Hubbard at his request, with “no ‘swap’ necessary,” though he also said he would not have been released had the White House not halted new sanctions passed by Congress against Russia from taking effect last week.

“It would seem that this is all tethered to short term interests on the part of the Trump administration that seem to be connected to fuel prices,” CBS News national security analyst Elliot Ackerman, a retired Marine and special activities officer at the CIA, told “CBS Mornings.”

Witkoff praised Putin after the release, calling him a “humanitarian,” a comment that generated bipartisan criticism.

“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian, you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Witkoff told Putin. 

Despite the goodwill expressed after Hubbard’s release, Moscow still launched major strikes on Ukraine overnight. Russia launched 21 missiles at Kyiv and nearly half of all of Ukraine’s regions.

“I think this hostage release seems to be a much smaller gesture in what’s a larger pattern of kind of appeasing actions between President Trump and Putin that are running counter to Ukraine’s interest in the war,” Ackerman told CBS News.