Russia has released a retired American teacher jailed for fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, as US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
The release of Stephen Hubbard had been foreshadowed a day earlier in Washington, when President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he had talked with Putin "at length" about the issue and had asked him to free the Michigan man.
Hubbard is the second American detainee in just over two months to be freed by Russia.
Witkoff - who has tried to steer Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement to end the four-and-a-half year war, and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Norway on Tuesday - thanked Putin for releasing Hubbard.
"Because of you, he's going home to his family," he told the Russian leader, who responded that Hubbard was at the St. Petersburg airport, Pulkovo.
Hubbard's exit from custody occurred not only during a visit by Witkoff but also at a time when Trump has taken a series of actions meant to benefit Russia as Washington's alliance with Ukraine shows signs of fraying.
Trump decided on Friday, for instance, to waive sanctions on Russia in a bill that Congress overwhelmingly passed to support Ukraine, targeting the flow of financial resources fuelling Russia's war.
That reversal followed Trump's announcement of a deal to import Russian diesel fuel in a long-shot effort to curb high gas prices ahead of the US midterm elections in November.
Also on Wednesday, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the first tanker full of diesel would be dispatched to the US on Thursday.
Hubbard was sentenced after a closed trial in 2024 to nearly seven years in prison.
Prosecutors said he had signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, and that he fought alongside them until being captured two months later.
The US government, under the Biden administration, designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained.