Eerie parallels: just as he once did for Orbán, Putin now gives Trump a prisoner as a gift

Russia has released Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American citizen whom Moscow accused of fighting as a mercenary on Ukraine's side. Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday in St. Petersburg, during talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, that Hubbard had already been taken to Pulkovo Airport. The Michigan-born retired teacher was sentenced by a Moscow court in 2024, at the age of 72, to nearly seven years in prison, to be served in a penal colony.

According to Russian prosecutors, the man, who had lived in Ukraine since 2014, joined a territorial defense unit in Izium after the full-scale invasion and was captured by Russian forces roughly two years ago. Hubbard admitted to the charge, but his relatives told Reuters in 2024 that he held explicitly pro-Russian views and was unlikely to have fought at that age. Donald Trump confirmed the news on social media. He wrote that during their phone call last week he had asked Putin to release Hubbard, and that the United States

"didn't have to give anything in return."

He had already hinted on Tuesday that something was in the works: "Wait and see what happens," he told reporters, "we've been focused on Hubbard."

The case is eerily reminiscent of what happened in Hungary this spring. On March 4, five weeks before the April election, then-Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó traveled to Moscow, where Putin announced he would release two ethnic Hungarian prisoners of war from Transcarpathia. The two men, who also held Hungarian citizenship, had been conscripted into the Ukrainian army and later fell into Russian captivity. Viktor Orbán had asked for their release in a phone call the day before, and the two men arrived at Budapest Airport early the next morning on a government plane, where their families were waiting for them.

"Vladimir Putin asked for nothing in return for the prisoners"

– Szijjártó said at the time. The script is the same: at the request of an ally in trouble during an election campaign, Putin graciously sends home one or two prisoners, and the ally can then show that he is the one who gets along with Moscow and brought his people home. Trump may now play the same hero role ahead of the midterm elections on November 3: he brought the prisoner home, he is the best negotiator. As for how much such a gesture is worth at the ballot box, Orbán's example is a cautionary one: the return of the two prisoners of war did not save Fidesz from its two-thirds defeat.

The phrase "asked for nothing in return" actually reveals a lot in both cases. Putin does not release prisoners out of charity, but to strengthen politicians from whom he gets more than a prisoner is worth. In recent weeks, Trump has agreed with him on the purchase of Russian diesel and has suspended the sanctions under the Graham bill passed by Congress, while Ukraine, meanwhile, is not receiving the Patriot missiles its allies have already paid for. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, wrote on October 9 that Russia might need to "replenish its exchange fund" with Western citizens so it can bring its own people home. For the Kremlin, prisoners are thus a kind of currency, spent when the exchange rate is most favorable. An elderly American teacher was just worth that much this time: one piece of good news for Trump two weeks before the election.

Incidentally, at the meeting Witkoff asked Putin to consider resuming trilateral talks, but Russian state media did not report that Putin had made any promises on the matter. The Kremlin is instead pushing for a Putin-Trump meeting in China next month, without Ukraine, and nothing has been said publicly about the security guarantees for Ukraine drafted in Oslo.

Ugar