Today, Stephen Hubbard is heading home.
Stephen is finally back in America with his loved ones after enduring four years of unjust detention. Our nation celebrates his return and offers him our prayers as he begins this next chapter of his life. Because of President Trump's leadership, more than 100 Americans have been freed from captivity and returned home.
The Trump Administration will always work tirelessly to secure the release of Americans unjustly detained abroad and will continue its campaign to free those who are still wrongfully detained.
🇺🇸 Good news for the Hubbard family, who spent four years insisting he was innocent. Stephen is a 74-year-old retired teacher from Michigan who was living in Ukraine when Russia invaded, and Moscow gave him almost seven years in a penal colony on mercenary charges his family always rejected. He was the last American in Russia formally designated as wrongfully detained, and getting him out alive, in poor health, matters.
It’s also fair to look at how it happened. There was no prisoner swap, but the President himself linked the release to waiving some Russia sanctions that were set to kick in days earlier, and members of Congress from both parties questioned that move. When the price is sanctions relief instead of a prisoner, Congress and the public deserve to know exactly what was traded and whether it rewards hostage-taking.
The work isn’t finished either. Up to ten other Americans, dual nationals included, are still in Russian custody, like Aleksandr Antonov, whose family is asking for his case to be prioritized, and keeping those names visible is part of the job. Welcome home, Stephen. Now the next ones 🏠
@StateDept @POTUS @SecRubio @CBSNews @NBCNews #StephenHubbard #BringThemHome #Russia #Ukraine #WrongfullyDetained
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While the Trump administration quietly secured the unilateral release of 74-year-old American Stephen Hubbard after four years in Russian custody—no prisoner swap, following a direct presidential request to Putin—and obtained Russian agreement in principle to resume U.S.-Russia-Ukraine talks after November 10 on post-conflict security arrangements (accepted by both sides per U.S. officials, following Witkoff’s Oslo and St. Petersburg meetings), Democrats and their media allies have produced nothing but reflexive smears that treating Putin as a negotiating counterpart somehow proves incompetence.
That is the only response they know how to give. Their own administrations left Americans languishing in foreign prisons for years with no resolution and allowed a grinding war to continue without any credible off-ramp or leverage that produced results. They never delivered a free American without conditions or forced a path toward talks; they simply watched, then attacked anyone who tried. Concrete outcomes for an American citizen and progress toward ending the war are metrics they are unequipped and unwilling to credit, because their record consists of failure followed by endless commentary. Trump’s approach has already returned one wrongfully detained American and advanced negotiations. Theirs remains the same empty performance.
-- Joseph Fosco
October 21, 2026
