Trump Hints at Deal With Putin to Free American Teacher Stephen Hubbard

Updated 13:13 UTC, Oct 21, 2026: Putin offers Iran help, fertilizer and a China meeting

More detail from the St. Petersburg talks has since come out. Putin offered Russia's help in dealing with Iran, pointing to Moscow's long relationship with Tehran, and said Russia could supply large quantities of fertilizer to the United States, Reuters reported. He also raised a possible meeting in China next month with President Donald Trump, which the Kremlin has suggested could include Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Jared Kushner joined the talks remotely because he has the flu, CNN reported. The meeting followed Tuesday's talks in Oslo, where a US official said Ukraine brought forward new ideas and the two sides made meaningful progress on a peace framework covering long term security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war economic plan and a wider European security structure. Kyiv's red lines, security guarantees and no surrender of territory, were restated in Oslo.

Updated 10:02 UTC, Oct 21, 2026: Russia frees Hubbard

Russia has freed Stephen Hubbard. President Vladimir Putin announced the release on Wednesday at the start of talks in St. Petersburg with US envoy Steve Witkoff, and said Hubbard was at Pulkovo airport, according to Reuters.

Hubbard, 74, had been held since 2022 and was serving a sentence of six years and 10 months after a closed trial convicted him of mercenary activity. At the time of his release he was the only American prisoner held by Russia whom Washington had designated as wrongfully detained, Reuters said. His family and his US based lawyer have said the charges against him were false.

Witkoff thanked Putin for the release, CNN reported. The talks at the Constantine Palace were the ninth in person meeting between Witkoff and Putin, Reuters said, and they began with the release as a goodwill gesture. Witkoff arrived in St. Petersburg on Wednesday morning, a day after talks in Oslo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that a US official called constructive. CNN, citing Russian state media TASS, said Witkoff urged Putin to consider resuming trilateral talks among Russia, the United States and Ukraine, and that Putin expressed interest in restoring economic cooperation with the United States.

President Donald Trump had told reporters on Oct. 20 that he had pressed Putin at length to free Hubbard and hinted that news could come within days. The original report from Oct. 20 follows.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he has pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to release Stephen Hubbard, a retired American teacher held in Russia since 2022, and hinted at a development within days.

Trump spoke in the Oval Office on Oct. 20 during an event on a new fraud whistleblower program. Asked whether his administration was close to a deal to free Hubbard, he declined to give details, then told reporters to return to the question soon.

"I do not want to talk about it, but everybody has been after Hubbard for a long time, long before I got here," Trump said, according to Reuters. "Just remember that question for a couple of days from now."

"I have been talking to President Putin about Mr. Hubbard. I have been talking to him at length," he said in separate remarks reported by USA Today. "It is time to get Mr. Hubbard back."

A trip to Russia this week

US envoy Steve Witkoff, who met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo on Tuesday, is preparing to travel to Russia for more talks on the war. A White House official told USA Today that Witkoff will travel to Saint Petersburg on Oct. 21 and that the trip is also expected to include efforts to seek the release of Hubbard, whom the United States has designated as wrongfully detained.

In the same remarks, Trump pressed Zelenskyy to settle the war. "Ukraine has to want to settle this war," he said, according to Reuters, adding that Russia had the upper hand because "Russia is a big machine, they just keep grinding forward."

Trump and Putin last spoke by phone on Oct. 9, according to USA Today. Since then, Trump has eased sanctions on Moscow and stepped up pressure on Kyiv.

Who Stephen Hubbard is

Hubbard, 74, is a retired schoolteacher who grew up in Big Rapids, Michigan, according to a Reuters explainer published on Oct. 20. He served in the US Air Force and the National Guard, earned a master's degree in English, and taught English in Japan for 25 years before moving, in 2014, to Izyum in eastern Ukraine with a Ukrainian partner, his sister Patricia Hubbard Fox told Reuters.

Russia captured Izyum about two months after the invasion began. Russian state media said Hubbard was detained in April 2022 and alleged he had been manning a Ukrainian checkpoint. Reuters said it could not independently establish how he was captured.

After a closed trial, a Moscow court convicted Hubbard of being a mercenary in October 2024 and sentenced him to six years and 10 months in prison. Prosecutors said he had joined a Ukrainian territorial defence unit and had been promised $1,000 a month. Russian state media said he pleaded guilty.

His family has disputed that account. Fox questioned the reported confession, saying her brother held pro-Russian views and was unlikely to have taken up arms in his seventies. His US based lawyer, Martin De Luca, told Reuters in June 2025 that Hubbard said the charges were false and that Russian soldiers had taken him from his house.

Wrongfully detained

Washington designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained in January 2025, committing the US government to negotiate for his release. The State Department has said Russia refused US officials consular access to him.

The New York Times reported in February 2025 that Hubbard had been moved through at least five Russian detention centres before his trial, and his lawyer said he was later held in the Mordovia region, east of Moscow.

Trump gave no terms for any release and the White House did not confirm a deal.