President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Russia on Wednesday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and oversee the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher from Michigan who had been in Russian detention since 2022, according to reports in Russian state-run media.
Witkoff landed in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on Wednesday morning, a Kremlin aide confirmed, ahead of the planned meeting with Putin.
Trump’s envoy thanked Putin for freeing Hubbard, according to a readout of the meeting published by the Kremlin. Putin said that Hubbard — who was detained in eastern Ukraine in April 2022 — was taken to St. Peterburg’s Pulkovo Airport, the readout said.
“I want to thank you very much. The president sends his thanks,” Witkoff said, according to the Kremlin readout. “Because of you, he’s going home to his family,” Witkoff added, describing Putin as “a humanitarian.”
Trump later wrote in a post to social media he asked Putin to release Hubbard in a phone call that took place last week. “Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family,” Trump wrote.
The U.S. “was not required to give anything in return — an unprecedented situation for Russia,” Trump added. “There was no ‘swap’ necessary for this release.”
The president then posted to social media again defending his recent decision to waive numerous sanctions on Russia. “If sanctions would have been placed, certainly those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt,” Trump wrote of the discussions over Hubbard’s release.
Witkoff arrived in St. Petersburg as the Trump administration was closing in on a deal that would see multiple Americans released from detention in Russia, two U.S. officials and another source familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The talks were centered on Hubbard and several other U.S. citizens held by Moscow on what the administration believes are dubious charges, the source said.
Hubbard had been living in eastern Ukraine as a civilian since around 2014, where he taught English and had a relationship with a Ukrainian woman, according to his family.
After he was detained, Russian authorities charged Hubbard with acting as a mercenary and fighting for Ukraine, sentencing him to nearly seven years in prison. Hubbard’s family and U.S. officials said the charges were false and the State Department designated him as wrongfully detained.
During their meeting, Witkoff and Putin discussed the latest U.S.-led efforts to end Moscow’s ongoing invasion, which the Kremlin launched in February 2022.
“One thing that I hope to accomplish today is to have some good conversation between us about resumption potentially of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States,” Witkoff said, per the Kremlin readout.
Witkoff also touted U.S.-Russian “business and economic cooperation” as “an example of what the possibilities are in the future.”
Witkoff traveled to St. Petersburg following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Norwegian capital of Oslo on Tuesday. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finnish President Alexander Stubb also attended the talks, which focused on ceasefire proposals to halt Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Witkoff’s latest round of shuttle diplomacy comes amid intensifying White House pressure on Zelenskyy to make concessions to secure a peace deal with Moscow.
In recent weeks, Trump waived a raft of sanctions on Moscow and again blamed Kyiv for the lack of progress in U.S.-sponsored peace talks, even suggesting that Zelenskyy should be replaced as Ukrainian president.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the U.S. had received “nothing” for its support of Ukraine.
“Look, we have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine. We’ve got nothing back other than high diesel,” Trump said. “We have given, probably, possibly, more money to Ukraine than almost anybody over the years, hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ve got nothing back, and the American taxpayers are tired of it. We want Zelenskyy to make a deal.”
Following his meetings in Oslo on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said in posts to social media that he was “thankful to the American side” for its input on propose future security guarantees for Kyiv. The Ukrainian president also said he spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio by phone to discuss “sensitive issues such as Starlink, ballistic missile interceptors and intelligence.”
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy said he continued to hold meetings in Oslo. “A lot depends on whether the American side manages to hear something new from Russia today — about peace, not about continuing the war,” he wrote.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti, Shannon K. Kingston, Fritz Farrow, Nicholas Kerr, Emily Chang, Patrick Reevell, Anna Sergeeva and Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
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