Finance · Euroglobal New
Russia has released retired American teacher Stephen Hubbard , 74, the latest sign of warmer ties between the two countries as Washington pressures Kyiv to agree to a deal to end Moscow’s war . U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff lauded President Vladimir Putin for the release of Hubbard as he held peace talks with the Russian leader early Wednesday in St. Petersburg.
“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir,” Witkoff said. The U.S. has courted the Kremlin for weeks, and the release of Hubbard — a Michigan native detained in Ukraine in 2022 — will give President Donald Trump a victory to tout after backlash at home and abroad for his tilt away from Kyiv in the conflict.
Trump hailed the news. “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,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
Trump said that he had directly asked Putin in a phone call last week to release Hubbard, who was being held on charges he denies of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. He was the last American designated as wrongfully detained in Russia by the State Department. Stephen Hubbard.
Trisha Hubbard via Facebook The meeting between Putin and Witkoff, which Jared Kushner was expected to join virtually, came after the American negotiators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. Ukraine brought forward new ideas and proposals at those talks, a U.S. official told NBC News, adding that “meaningful progress” was made as the Trump administration intensifies its peace push. Diplomacy has made little headway for months, and this renewed American effort has drawn widespread criticism as Trump announced a series of moves to bolster Russia while Ukraine accused the U.S. of withdrawing crucial support. 01:32 “We want Zelenskyy to make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, intensifying a pressure campaign that has fueled concern the U.S. is no longer committed to Kyiv’s defense against its Moscow invaders.
“We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss,” Trump said. Witkoff told Putin on Wednesday that “groundwork” had been laid for ending the fighting, and that he had brought documents outlining approaches to a possible deal.
He also said he hoped that the Russian leader would consider resuming trilateral talks. Witkoff was greeted by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the international airport outside St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
TASS via AP Zelenskyy said that a potential trilateral leaders’ meeting was “one of the important ideas” raised in Oslo after Tuesday’s talks, which also included the leaders of Norway and Finland. Putin has so far insisted any meeting with Zelenskyy could only happen once a deal is finalized and take place in Moscow, a nonstarter for the Ukrainians. The Kremlin has also shown little sign of shifting from its hardline demands, which include seizing Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region.
Zelenskyy and Witkoff embrace, accompanied by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, right, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, left, during their meeting in Oslo on Tuesday. Heiko Junge / AFP via Getty Trump signed a diesel deal with Russia earlier this month and waived new sanctions on Moscow, drawing bipartisan criticism. He claimed Wednesday that negotiations to free Hubbard “would have come to a complete and total halt” if he hadn’t waived the sanctions.
Kyiv meanwhile said it received no advance warning about at least three major Russian attacks and that restrictions on Elon Musk’s Starshield satellite service continue to hamper its aerial defenses and battlefield operations. After the talks with Witkoff on Tuesday, Zelenskyy told reporters the recent issues with intelligence sharing had been resolved. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the talks in Oslo “positive,” but said “nothing unexpected” came out of them.
Destroyed cars among debris in the courtyard of a residential building following a Russian drone attack on Kyiv on Wednesday. Serhii Okunev / AFP via Getty Rubio once again denied that the White House was behind any slowdown to Ukraine’s use of the internet service, saying this was an issue for Musk and SpaceX. Musk himself said last week any decision was down to Trump.
Deadly Russian attacks continued to hit Ukraine, meanwhile, with at least nine civilians killed across the country on Wednesday as Moscow ramps up its strikes on energy infrastructure ahead of winter. Authorities in Russia’s border Bryansk region said Wednesday that one person was killed in a Ukrainian strike.
Source: NBC News
