Russia frees Stephen Hubbard: Vesti reports gratitude, Trump claims no exchange, BFMTV alone notes torture claims

Full analysis

What happened Why it matters How each country tells it Where accounts conflict Room for disagreement Our assessment Sources and evidence

What happened

On Wednesday October 21, Vladimir Putin told US special envoy Steve Witkoff, at their meeting in St Petersburg, that Stephen Hubbard had been released and was already at Pulkovo Airport, where Witkoff had landed. All five outlets carry that announcement. Witkoff thanked Putin "on behalf of our president" and "on behalf of the United States," and said he had met Hubbard’s son, a priest in a Greek church, a few days earlier (Vesti). He then told Putin: "You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir," in words carried by both NBC News and BFMTV. Witkoff said he would meet Hubbard at the airport (Vesti).

Hubbard is a retired English teacher from Michigan. BFMTV records that he was captured on April 2, 2022 during the occupation of Izyum in northeastern Ukraine, where he had lived with his Ukrainian partner since 2014, and that Russia disclosed holding him only in September 2024. He was convicted in a closed trial in late 2024 and sentenced to nearly seven years for mercenarism for Ukraine. The outlets do not agree on his age: Vesti says 73, NBC News, Nettavisen and The News International say 74, and BFMTV says 75. Moscow’s account, carried by BFMTV, is that he joined Ukrainian territorial defense at the start of the assault and was paid at least $1,000 a month. Ukrainian authorities told AFP they have no record of him in that force, and Hubbard denies the charges; his US-based lawyer Martin De Luca told Reuters, in an account carried by The News International, that Hubbard told him the charges were false and he was in no combat or military unit. The State Department had designated Hubbard wrongfully detained, and NBC News notes he was the last American carrying that designation in Russia.

On Truth Social, Trump said Hubbard was "on his way back home and will soon be with his family," that the US "out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return — an unprecedented situation for Russia," and that he had personally asked Putin in a phone call last week. The Kremlin called the move a goodwill gesture (NBC News). Hubbard’s family thanked Trump and his team (NBC News). Trump also said the release should have happened under Biden, per Nettavisen.

But NBC News carries a second Trump claim that sits uneasily with the first: that negotiations for Hubbard’s release "would have come to a complete and total halt" if he had not waived sanctions. TIB reported on October 18 that Trump signed an executive order on October 16 waiving nearly all sanctions and tariffs under the Graham Act. The release therefore arrives days after the waiver, and the statement that nothing was required in return has to be weighed against the president’s own claim that the waiver was what kept negotiations alive.

Why it matters

The release is not standing alone; it is threaded through the peace push. Witkoff came to St Petersburg from Oslo, where he met Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Nordic leaders, and told Putin he had brought documents outlining approaches to a possible deal and that "groundwork" had been laid (NBC News). For Trump, the release is a victory to tout after criticism of his tilt away from Kyiv — NBC News makes that framing explicit — and it hands him something concrete at a moment when his pressure on Kyiv draws concern. For the Kremlin, the release is a goodwill gesture that costs a prisoner Russia has already tried and sentenced, and Vesti’s account stops at Witkoff’s gratitude and Putin’s statement that the man was already at Pulkovo. BFMTV, by contrast, leads with the administration describing Putin as a "humanist," turning the release into evidence of rhetorical accommodation that will unsettle US allies watching rapprochement with suspicion. And for Hubbard, whose release carries a torture allegation from a Ukrainian co-detainee reported only by BFMTV, the unresolved conditions of his detention remain part of what has happened, even if no other account in this set carries the claim.

How each country tells it

• 🇷🇺
  Vesti · Russia · original reporting

  Russian state outlet reports the release through Witkoff’s gratitude to Putin and Putin’s statement that Hubbard was already at Pulkovo Airport, framing it as a Kremlin concession to Washington.
• 🇺🇸
  NBC News · United States · original reporting

  US outlet casts the release as a victory for President Trump amid his peace push, pairing it with Witkoff’s ‘humanitarian’ praise and Trump’s insistence that no concession was required.
• 🇳🇴
  Nettavisen · Norway

  Norwegian outlet treats the release as an optics problem, foregrounding Trump’s own ‘Putin’s gift’ language and his denial that any barter was necessary.
• 🇫🇷
  BFMTV · France · original reporting

  French outlet turns the release into evidence of rhetorical accommodation, highlighting that the Trump administration described Putin as a ‘humanist’.
• 🇵🇰
  The News International · Pakistan · original reporting

  Pakistani English daily reports the release neutrally within the continuing Putin-Witkoff meeting, noting both the US wrongful-detention designation and the detainee’s denial of the charges.

Where accounts conflict

Three points cannot all be true as reported. First, the age: Vesti says Hubbard is 73, NBC News, Nettavisen and The News International say 74, and BFMTV says 75. The discrepancy is small but it lands on the central figure of the story, and none of the outlets gives a birth date that would settle it.

Second, what the release cost. Trump says on Truth Social that nothing was required in exchange, and no outlet in this set independently confirms a trade. Yet NBC News carries Trump’s own later statement that the Hubbard negotiations would have halted without the sanctions waivers, signed October 16. Those two claims cannot both be fully true at the same time: if the waiver was the thing that kept talks alive, then something was required, even if it was not handed over at a signing table. Nettavisen’s headline calls the release "Putin’s gift," and its account foregrounds Trump’s denial that any "barter trade" was necessary, so the possibility of a trade is the first thing its readers are left holding.

Third, the torture allegation. BFMTV alone reports that a Ukrainian co-detainee said Hubbard was tortured. This is a single-source claim, and because no other account in this set carries it, it cannot be weighed across independent reporting chains. It remains an allegation, one voice, against the backdrop of a court that was closed.

Room for disagreement

The strongest case that the release was exactly what Trump says it was rests on the sequence he describes: he asked last week, Putin delivered this week, and no one has produced a Russian demand attached to Hubbard. Vesti supports the simplest reading — a Kremlin concession announced in the presence of the US envoy — and the family’s statement, carried by NBC News, is plain relief. On this reading the release is cheap for Putin, builds trust in the channel, and the sanctions waiver was a separate wider-relationship decision, not a price for one man. If that holds, the no-trade claim stands and scrutiny fades.