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Overview
- Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, that 74-year-old Stephen Hubbard had been freed and was at Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg.
- Hubbard was detained by Russian forces in April 2022 and was convicted in a closed Moscow trial in October 2024 and sentenced to six years and ten months for alleged mercenarism.
- U.S. officials had long called Hubbard’s detention unjust, and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in St. Petersburg and publicly thanked him for securing Hubbard’s release.
- Three former cellmates reported that Hubbard suffered physical beatings, degrading conditions and health problems in Russian custody, though those accounts have not been independently verified.
- The release raises questions about links between individual detainee outcomes and broader diplomacy, coming after President Trump suspended certain sanctions on Russia and during renewed high-level U.S.-Russia contacts.