Witkoff meets Putin in St. Petersburg, Hubbard freed
The US envoy reached the Russian president a day after Oslo, and Moscow released 74-year-old American Stephen Hubbard at the start of the talks.
Steve Witkoff, special envoy of US President Donald Trump, held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, October 21, and Moscow released Stephen Hubbard (74) at the start of the meeting. Hubbard was the last American the State Department classified as wrongfully detained. Witkoff arrived in Russia a day after meeting Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo. At Pulkovo airport he was met by Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy of the Russian president.
By Al Jazeera’s count, it was Witkoff’s ninth in-person meeting with Putin. According to ABC News, Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov also sat in on the talks, and the Kremlin published a record of the meeting. In it, Witkoff thanks his host for Hubbard’s release.
“Thanks to you, he is going home to his family,” Witkoff told Putin, according to the Kremlin record.
Who is Stephen Hubbard and why was he in prison?
Hubbard is a retired teacher from Michigan who served in the National Guard and the US Air Force. According to his family, he had lived as a civilian in eastern Ukraine since about 2014, teaching English. American media date his capture differently: ABC News gives April 2022, while CBS News says only that it happened soon after the invasion began in February of that year.
Russian authorities accused him of fighting as a mercenary for the Ukrainian army, and in 2024 he was sentenced to nearly seven years in a penal colony. His family and US officials say the charges are false. Hubbard is in poor health and was supposed to be transferred to a military hospital in Texas. According to Russian news agencies, Putin said he was at Pulkovo airport at that moment.
Up to ten Americans remain in Russian custody, CBS News reports, among them dual citizens. In August, former Marine Robert Gilman, who had spent more than four years in a Russian prison, was sent home under a humanitarian pardon after Trump appealed directly to Putin.
What does Trump say about the price of the release?
Trump claims he personally asked Putin for Hubbard’s release in a phone call last week. In a post on Truth Social he wrote that “Stephen is on his way home and will be with his family soon.” In the same post he added that “no ‘swap’ was needed for this release.”
In a follow-up post he tied the outcome to sanctions. Five days earlier the US administration had weighed that question and announced an exemption from part of the measures against Russia, a move Putin praised and some Republicans in Congress criticized. Trump wrote about the Hubbard negotiations:
“Had sanctions been imposed, those negotiations would surely have been completely and permanently stopped.”
According to ABC News, two US officials and another person familiar with the matter said the administration is nearing a deal to free several Americans from Russian custody. The source said the talks cover Hubbard and a few other US citizens jailed in Moscow on charges Washington considers dubious.
What else was on the table in St. Petersburg?
Witkoff opened the meeting by saying: “One thing I hope to accomplish today is that we have a good conversation between us.” He explained that he meant a possible continuation of three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US, so that technical teams could agree on next steps toward a peace settlement. He also said he would brief Putin on the Oslo talks.
According to Al Jazeera, Putin offered to help Trump on Iran, citing Russia’s long-standing ties with Tehran. He also offered to deliver large quantities of fertilizer to American farmers. He spoke as well about a possible meeting with Trump in China next month, which, according to the Kremlin’s suggestion, Chinese President Xi Jinping could also attend.
What came before in Oslo?
On Tuesday, October 20, Witkoff met Zelensky, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store in the Norwegian capital. After the talks, Zelensky told reporters:
“Steve is going to Russia tomorrow, so let’s see what Putin has to say.”
The Ukrainian president also said US intelligence sharing had been restored, and he mentioned the possibility of a meeting with Trump and Putin. The same day he spoke by phone with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about ballistic missile interceptors, intelligence and the Starlink and Starshield satellite links. On Tuesday Trump said it was time for Ukraine to end the war, or “a very bad thing” would happen to it.
The diplomacy unfolded alongside continued fighting. On Wednesday, according to Bryansk region Governor Yegor Kovalchuk, at least one person was killed and two wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack. Ukraine’s emergency service said two people died in a Russian strike on a building in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district.
