American Teacher Wrongfully Imprisoned in Russia for 4 Years Released After US Envoy’s Visit With Putin

FILE – Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine against Russia shows up in a video link as he stands in a glass cage during a court session in the Moscow City court in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

A retired American teacher was released on Wednesday from a Russian jail, where he had been held for four years on allegations he’d acted as a mercenary for Ukraine, according to reports.

Stephen Hubbard, a Michigan man who spent decades living abroad and working as an English teacher, was thrown in jail in Russia in 2022 after authorities claimed the 74-year-old had signed a contract to fight for Ukraine, according to CNN.

At the time, Hubbard had spent nearly a decade living in Izyum, a strategically important city in eastern Ukraine that Russia occupied for six months at the start of the war in 2022.

Russian authorities claimed Hubbard was being paid $1,000 a month to fight for Ukraine. The U.S. State Department later designated Hubbard as having been wrongfully detained, and his sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox, denied the allegation, CNN reported.

He was sentenced to six years in prison, anyway.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’d spoken to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin about Hubbard.

On Wednesday, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff made his ninth trip to St. Petersburg for discussions with Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

Putin began that meeting by telling Witkoff that Hubbard would be released and at the airport waiting to fly back with the envoy, according to Reuters.

A post on Trump’s Truth Social account later acknowledged HUbbard’s release, saying:

Stephen Hubbard, taken four years ago by Russia during the Biden Administration, was just released from prison, at the request of President Donald J. Trump, made directly to President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation last week. Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family. The United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return – an unprecedented situation for Russia. There was no “swap” necessary for this release. This major return should have taken place long ago through the Biden Administration, which got nowhere in its negotiations with the Kremlin. Stephen is on his way back home. “Welcome home Stephen, it’s great to have you back,” stated President Trump.

Hubbard is the second American released from a Russian prison in three months.

In August, U.S. Marine Robert Gilman, 32, was freed after four years in a Russian prison amid reports he had become seriously ill and was in a “dissociative stupor” for more than a month after being abused in prison — and had been taken to a civilian hospital where he was on a feeding tube while being handcuffed to his hospital bed.

Gilman, a teacher, had been jailed in Russia after he was accused of causing a disturbance on a train and later beating a police officer, a case his family disputed, according to the Associated Press.

In 2025, Gilman had his sentence extended, a decade after being found guilty of attacking prison guards, but his family and advocates pushed for his release — noting his deteriorating health.

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