Russia frees Stephen Hubbard, but Trump’s Biden comparison is unproven

Russia has freed Stephen Hubbard after more than four years in custody, a result Donald Trump is using to criticise Joe Biden. Yet the release does not establish Trump’s charge that his predecessor should have secured the American’s freedom long ago. [1] [6]

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the release on 21 October 2026 during talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg. Witkoff thanked Putin, who said Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher, was already at the city’s Pulkovo airport. [4] [6] [7]

“Biden should have done the Hubbard release long ago! What a difference a President makes!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post dated 21 October. [1]

A day earlier, Trump had told reporters in the Oval Office that “everybody has been after Hubbard for a long time, long before I got here”, Reuters reported. He also said he had raised the case with Putin and hinted at a breakthrough. [5]

Earlier US efforts

Hubbard had been living in Izyum in eastern Ukraine before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Russian state media said he was detained that April. In October 2024, a Moscow court convicted him of being a mercenary after a closed trial and sentenced him to six years and ten months in prison. [4]

His lawyer, Martin De Luca, told Reuters in June 2025 that Hubbard had told him the charges were false and that Russian soldiers had taken him from his home. [4]

The State Department said it was closely following Hubbard’s case in October 2024, while Russia had denied US consular access, Dutch broadcaster NOS reported at the time. The Biden administration formally designated him as wrongfully detained in January 2025. [8] [3] [6]

In August 2026, Democratic senators urged Trump’s administration to intensify efforts to free Americans held in Russia and pursue their release separately from the stalled Ukraine peace negotiations. [3]

The sanctions connection

Five days before the release, Trump waived new Russia-related sanctions and tariffs under the Graham Act, which he had signed into law in September. The measures included an additional 500% tariff on Russian goods, subject to statutory exceptions. His executive order left earlier sanctions under the executive orders it specified untouched. [2]

In separate posts on 21 October, Trump said the US “was not required to give anything in return” and that no prisoner swap was necessary. But he also linked the sanctions waiver to the release talks, CBS News reported. “If sanctions would have been placed, certainly those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt,” he wrote. [9]

The waiver spared Russia those new measures. Whether Moscow made it a condition of Hubbard’s release remains unclear.