Hubbard Release Comes as U.S.-Russia Talks Advance

Russia released Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired American teacher from Michigan, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. Their meeting came amid talks over Ukraine and a stated effort to create a path toward direct negotiations. U.S. officials had designated Hubbard wrongfully detained under the Biden administration, but NBC News reported no immediate U.S. confirmation of his release.

Release and detention

Russia’s state news agencies reported Hubbard’s release. Putin said Hubbard was at Pulkovo Airport near St. Petersburg, while the AP reported that Witkoff announced the release during his meeting with Putin. Hubbard had been detained in 2022 and sentenced after a closed trial in 2024 to nearly seven years in prison on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. He denied the charges.

Prosecutors said Hubbard signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. According to prosecutors, he fought alongside Ukrainian forces until they captured him two months later. His release came four years after his detention, according to the supplied chronology.

President Donald Trump said earlier in the week that he had spoken at length with Putin about Hubbard and asked him to release the American. “I've been talking to President Putin about Mr. Hubbard. I've been talking to him at length. I've asked him to release him. Let's see what happens,” Trump said. On Tuesday, Trump again said he had raised Hubbard’s release with Putin.

Ukraine talks and competing terms

The St. Petersburg meeting followed talks in Oslo between U.S. negotiators, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, including the leaders of Norway and Finland. Jared Kushner was expected to join the meeting virtually. Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Ukraine would dominate the Putin-Witkoff talks at Constantine Palace. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev was also due to join and greeted Witkoff at the airport outside St. Petersburg.

A U.S. official told NBC News that Ukraine had brought forward new ideas and proposals in Oslo, where “meaningful progress” had been made. In St. Petersburg, the stated goal was to build on that progress, discuss the proposals with Russia and create a path toward direct negotiations. Zelenskyy said a possible trilateral leaders' meeting was “one of the important ideas” raised in Oslo.

Putin has said he would meet Zelenskyy only after a deal was finalized, and only in Moscow. Ukrainians considered that condition unacceptable. The Kremlin had shown little sign of changing its demands, including that Russia seize all of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Witkoff had tried, without success, to steer Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement.

Security and pressure around the negotiations

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Oslo talks “positive,” but said “nothing unexpected” had come out of them. Witkoff would take the ideas to St. Petersburg and share them with Russia, Rubio said: “and let's see if we can make some progress.” The war was approaching its fifth-year mark in February.

Deadly Russian attacks continued in Ukraine on Wednesday, NBC reported, killing at least nine civilians as Moscow stepped up strikes on energy infrastructure ahead of winter. Authorities in Russia's border Bryansk region said a Ukrainian strike killed one person.

Kyiv said it had received no advance warning of at least three major Russian attacks. It also said restrictions on Elon Musk's Starshield satellite service continued to hamper its air defenses and battlefield operations. Zelenskyy said Tuesday that recent U.S. security-cooperation issues had 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.

Rubio denied the White House was behind any slowdown in Ukraine's use of internet service, saying the matter involved Musk and SpaceX. Musk said the previous week that any decision was Trump's. NBC described Hubbard's release as a sign of warmer ties between Washington and Moscow amid U.S. pressure on Kyiv to agree to a deal ending the war. The network also reported that Washington had courted the Kremlin for weeks and that Trump had faced domestic and international backlash over a tilt away from Ukraine.