Russia pardoned and released 74-year-old American Stephen Hubbard, who had been held in custody since April 2022
A Moscow court sentenced Hubbard to six years and 10 months in October 2024 after Russian prosecutors accused him of mercenary activity alongside Ukrainian forces
Donald Trump said he had asked Vladimir Putin to release Hubbard, but public statements do not establish that the pardon involved a prisoner swap or reciprocal concession
Russia released Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American who spent more than four years in custody, on Wednesday, after President Vladimir Putin pardoned him on humanitarian grounds. The announcement came during Putin’s meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg, a day after US President Donald Trump said he had asked the Russian leader to free him.
Hubbard had been detained since April 2022 and was sentenced by a Moscow court in October 2024 to six years and 10 months in prison for mercenary activity, following allegations that he had fought alongside Ukrainian forces. The US government had designated him as wrongfully detained, making his case part of Washington’s efforts to secure the release of American citizens held abroad.
Hubbard’s US legal team, Boies Schiller Flexner, credited Trump, Witkoff and other administration officials with sustained diplomatic efforts. His Russian lawyers at EPAM Law said the pardon followed humanitarian considerations, citing his age, health and prolonged separation from his family.
The release ends Hubbard’s detention but does not settle the competing positions surrounding his case. The Kremlin described the decision as humanitarian, while the US legal team presented it as an outcome of diplomatic engagement. The public statements announcing his freedom do not establish that Washington made a reciprocal concession in exchange.
Who Is Stephen Hubbard?
Hubbard is from Michigan and worked as an English teacher before retiring. According to his sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox, he earned a master’s degree in English and spent 25 years teaching the language in Japan. He later moved to Cyprus before settling in Izyum, eastern Ukraine, in 2014 with his Ukrainian partner.
Fox told Reuters that Hubbard lived on a pension of about $300 a month and had limited contact with local residents. She said they last spoke in September 2021.
Hubbard was living in Izyum when Russian forces detained him in April 2022, during the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces captured the city that year, before Ukrainian troops regained control in September.
His detention left his family with little information about his whereabouts. EPAM Law, which began representing him in early 2025 after being engaged by his US legal team, said his relatives had been unable to contact him or establish where he was for more than two years.
Hubbard did not have a prominent public profile before the case became a diplomatic issue. His age, long detention and conviction for alleged participation in the war drew attention to the position of foreign nationals prosecuted by Russian authorities during the conflict.
What Led To His Conviction?
The Moscow City Court sentenced Hubbard on October 7, 2024, to six years and 10 months in a general-regime penal colony under Article 359, Part 3 of the Russian Criminal Code, which concerns mercenary activity.
Russian prosecutors accused him of joining Ukrainian forces and participating in combat operations. The Russian state news agency, reported from the courtroom that Hubbard accepted the charges. The court also ordered 142,000 Ukrainian hryvnias, equivalent to about $3,400 at the time, to be confiscated and paid to the Russian state.
The sentence covered time Hubbard had already spent in custody from April 2022. He was 72 when convicted and 74 when released.
The court record establishes the conviction under Russian law, but the prosecution’s allegations need to be distinguished from independently established facts about his activities in Ukraine. The public statements issued by his legal representatives around the release do not provide a detailed account of the circumstances in which he was detained or the evidence presented at trial.
The conviction also remained separate from Washington’s assessment of the case. The US government’s designation of Hubbard as wrongfully detained did not overturn the Russian verdict. His release came through a presidential pardon rather than a publicly announced judicial reversal.
Why Did Washington Intervene?
The US government’s efforts to secure Hubbard’s release intensified after his case came to the attention of officials and members of Congress. In January 2025, Washington designated him as wrongfully detained, signalling that it considered the circumstances of his imprisonment to warrant focused diplomatic efforts.
The designation reflects the US government’s assessment; it is not a ruling by an international court and does not itself invalidate the legal proceedings in the detaining country. Washington’s broader wrongful-detention policy uses diplomatic engagement and government coordination to seek the release of Americans held abroad.
US senators also urged the administration to increase pressure to secure the release of Americans detained in Russia. Their statements placed Hubbard’s case within a wider concern about US citizens held by Moscow and the need for the administration to use diplomatic channels to bring them home.
The legal effort developed alongside the political one. Boies Schiller Flexner engaged Moscow-based EPAM Law in early 2025 to represent Hubbard. The firms said their lawyers helped locate him, arranged humanitarian assistance and represented him in Russian court proceedings, including an application for parole. Both firms handled the case pro bono.
At the time of Hubbard’s release, he was the only American held in Russia who had been designated by the US government as wrongfully detained, according to Boies Schiller Flexner. The firm said two Americans had returned from Russia on humanitarian grounds in the preceding ten weeks, describing the releases as evidence of the benefits of sustained diplomacy.
How Was His Release Secured?
Trump publicly raised Hubbard’s case with Putin before the release. On Tuesday, the US president said he had asked the Russian leader to free the American. The next day, Putin told Witkoff that Hubbard had been released and was already at Pulkovo Airport in St Petersburg.
Witkoff thanked Putin for the decision during their meeting. The Kremlin’s account, carried by Russian state news agency, said the Russian president had granted the pardon on humanitarian grounds. EPAM Law also thanked Putin for making the release possible, while Hubbard’s US legal team credited Trump, Witkoff, Jared Kushner and officials involved in hostage affairs for sustained efforts to secure his freedom.
Trump said no prisoner swap was necessary. However, the public record does not establish whether Hubbard’s release was linked to another diplomatic arrangement or a specific concession by either government.
Trump also linked the outcome to his administration’s decision to hold off on fresh sanctions against Russia, claiming that Hubbard would not have been freed otherwise. That was Trump’s assertion; the available public statements do not independently establish that the sanctions decision secured the pardon.
The timing places Hubbard’s release alongside continuing US-Russia talks, including discussions over Ukraine. But a sequence of diplomatic events does not, by itself, prove that a wider agreement was reached. The Kremlin’s stated humanitarian rationale and the US legal team’s account of diplomatic efforts are the clearest public explanations available.
Hubbard’s release is a concrete outcome of engagement between Washington and Moscow, but there is not enough public evidence to conclude that it marks a broader change in Russia’s policy towards detained Americans.
What Does His Release Change?
For Hubbard and his family, the immediate consequence is the end of more than four years of separation. His son, Father Joseph Coleman, an Orthodox priest in Cyprus, described the period since Hubbard’s detention as one of uncertainty and separation, and welcomed the opportunity to see his father again. EPAM Law said the humanitarian dimension of the case, including Hubbard’s age and health, had been central to its work.
The release also illustrates how individual cases can become part of diplomatic engagement between countries at odds over a larger conflict. Hubbard’s conviction arose from Russia’s prosecution of alleged participation in combat operations alongside Ukrainian forces; his release followed direct contact between Putin and Trump’s representatives.
It does not, however, resolve the disagreement over the legal basis of his detention or establish a wider bargain between the two governments. Nor does it demonstrate that other Americans held in Russia will be released under similar circumstances.
The public record points to a combination of legal representation, humanitarian appeals and presidential diplomacy, but leaves unanswered whether any additional understanding accompanied the pardon. Hubbard is returning to the United States, while the conviction that led to his imprisonment remains part of the Russian court record.
His case therefore ends with a clear personal outcome but a more limited diplomatic conclusion: US-Russia engagement secured his release, yet the evidence does not show that it produced a broader shift in policy towards Americans detained during the Ukraine war.
