Russia seems to have freed Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American held for more than four years, as Vladimir Putin met U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at what The Guardian calls the grand Constantine Palace. During the meeting, Witkoff thanked Putin for the release and Putin replied that Hubbard had already reached the city’s Pulkovo Airport, according to the Russian state news agency TASS; the BBC and NPR report the same exchange. The BBC published the earliest account on hand, at 2:22 a.m. PT.

CBS News describes Hubbard as a Michigan native and retired school teacher who served in the U.S. National Guard and Air Force, and says Russian forces captured him in Ukraine shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The BBC says Russia held that he served in a defense unit in Izyum, in eastern Ukraine. TASS says the Moscow City Court handed him a sentence of 6 years and 10 months on Oct. 7, 2024, with his time held since April 2022 counted toward it; NPR says the sentence came after a closed trial.

Accounts of his own position differ. TASS says Hubbard confessed. NBC News says he denies the Russian case that he fought as a mercenary for Ukraine, and CBS News says his family has “maintained his innocence.” The U.S. State Department had designated him as wrongfully detained, per CBS, NBC and the BBC; NPR says that designation came under the Biden administration, and CBS and NBC say he counted as the last American in Russia with that designation. CBS says as many as 10 other Americans, including dual nationals, remain in Russian custody.

President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Hubbard “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,” per CBS News. Trump also wrote that the United States “was not required to give anything in return,” per CBS and The Guardian; NPR quotes the “anything in return” part. NBC News says the Kremlin called the move a goodwill gesture. The Guardian says Russia released him unilaterally rather than in a prisoner exchange, and the BBC notes that some earlier releases of Americans from Russia came through swaps.

In a second post, Trump linked the release to his decision last week to waive some sanctions on Russia just before they took effect, writing that “If sanctions would have been placed, certainly those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt,” CBS News reports; the BBC quotes parts of the same line. CBS says members of Congress, including some Republicans, had harshly criticized the waiver. The Guardian writes that the release appeared to mark Moscow’s latest calculated move to bring Trump further into line with Putin’s position on Ukraine; that reading comes from The Guardian alone.

Witkoff praised Putin on camera. “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian, you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” he said, per CBS News, which also quotes him telling Putin, “Because of you, he’s going home to his family.” NBC News says video from the Russian state agency RIA showed Hubbard telling Witkoff, “Thank you very much for all your efforts,” and Witkoff telling him that Putin sent “blessings.” In Kyiv, Oleksandr Merezhko, who chairs the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told NPR the humanitarian remark amounted to “a total disgrace for America, American diplomacy and even for President Trump.”

Hubbard’s son, Father Joseph Coleman, thanked both Trump and Putin in a statement, writing, “We have been gravely concerned for his safety and health since his 2022 detention,” per NPR. CBS News reports that Hubbard, in poor health, faced an expected flight to Texas for treatment at a military hospital; the BBC cites CBS for that detail.

The talks themselves centered on Ukraine. Witkoff arrived from Oslo, where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the leaders of Norway and Finland a day earlier, per NBC News and NPR. The Guardian quotes Witkoff telling Putin, “We’ve brought some papers. It’s really some ideas, some sort of peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and you’ll read that at your leisure,” and calls the trip his ninth to Russia since Trump gave him the Ukraine brief. The BBC says Witkoff asked Putin to consider proposals from Oslo, including renewed three-way talks with Ukraine, and that Putin has not said publicly whether any of them suit Moscow. As the meeting went on, Zelensky wrote that “much depends on whether the American side can hear something new from Russia today – about peace, and not about continuing the war,” per the BBC, which also cites Russian state media saying the talks lasted about three hours.

Putin also spoke about the diesel deal Washington struck with Moscow this month. The BBC, citing TASS, says Putin said the first shipment would leave Russia “in two to three days”; NPR says Putin put the first tankers at 60,000 tons of diesel. The Guardian says Russian officials expect the first tanker to depart on Thursday as part of an initial shipment of about 300,000 tonnes. The BBC says Witkoff told Putin that Trump felt “deeply grateful” for the deal.