Witkoff thanks Putin for freeing 73-year-old American Stephen Hubbard from a Russian prison.

The 73-year-old Michigan native and former US Air Force officer has been living in Izium, Kharkiv region, since 2014. After the invasion of Russia in 2022, Russian forces seized him from his home in occupied territory.

He was accused of mercenary activities and sentenced to 6 years and 10 months. Family and acquaintances say he had no ties to politics or the military during his life in Ukraine.

Former Ukrainian prisoners of war who shared a cell with him in a detention center in the Belgrade region said the elderly American was regularly beaten, tortured with electric shocks, starved and abused because of his citizenship.

Under this pressure, he had to incriminate himself on camera.