Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old US citizen held in Russian custody since 2022, had been freed and was at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport.
US President Donald Trump had said on Tuesday he raised Mr Hubbard's detention with Mr Putin and hinted that a development in the case could happen soon.
Mr Putin made the announcement at a meeting with US envoy Steve Witkoff in a grand imperial palace in St Petersburg. The meeting was to review new ideas on ending the war in Ukraine amid Washington's latest push to stop Europe's bloodiest conflict since the Second World War.
The meeting comes amid concerns in Kyiv and among its allies that the US is backing away from Ukraine, at times holding back real-time intelligence on Russian attacks and hobbling Ukraine's military communications.
Mr Putin also proposed meeting President Trump in China, Russian state TV said. The Kremlin has previously raised the possibility that Mr Putin, Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could hold three-way talks during an Apec summit in China next month.
Mr Putin also offered to talk about restoring economic co-operation between Moscow and Washington, state TV said.
The talks in St Petersburg, the ninth time that Mr Witkoff has met Mr Putin in person, began with a goodwill gesture from Russia – the release of the retired US schoolteacher from Michigan.
Mr Hubbard had been serving a nearly seven-year prison sentence in Russia following a conviction for mercenary activity at a closed-door trial.
He was arrested in April 2022 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum, where Russian prosecutors alleged he had been manning a Ukrainian military checkpoint. Prosecutors said Mr Hubbard had joined a Ukrainian territorial defence unit, received training, weapons and ammunition, and was promised $1,000 a month.
Russian state media reported he pleaded guilty to the charges. But his US-based lawyer, Martin De Luca, previously said Mr Hubbard had told him the charges against him were false and that he was not in any combat or military unit.
At the time of his release, Mr Hubbard was the only US prisoner held by Russia who was designated by Washington as “wrongfully detained”.
Mr Hubbard had served in the US Air Force and National Guard, according to military records cited by the New York Times.
He earned a master’s degree in English and lived in Japan for 25 years where he taught English before moving to Cyprus and then, in 2014, to Izyum with a Ukrainian partner, according to his sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox.
