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Washington — President Trump met with Stephen Hubbard, the American recently released from a Russian prison, at the White House on Friday.
Inviting reporters to join them in the Oval Office, the president called Hubbard a “very special man” who “suffered greatly.” CBS News was first to report plans for the meeting.
Hubbard was jailed in Russia for more than four years after being accused of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine. Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher, returned home to the U.S. last week.
Mr. Trump said to Hubbard, “I think I could say that you were treated reasonably well, right?” Hubbard said “yes,” and that he he was even treated “sympathetically by some of the guards.”
CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs asked Hubbard about the moment he learned he was being released.
“I had heard it many times before, and I reached the state where seeing is believing,” Hubbard said. “Actions speak louder than words. I never trusted what they said. Only when they started giving me new clothes and leading me to the exit of the prison. I went out and I saw the car and I was accompanied by a couple of Russians. Then I believed, finally believed, on the drive from Moscow to St. Petersburg, ‘I’m really going somewhere.'”
Hubbard said he wouldn’t have lived another year in that prison.
Hubbard’s release was announced during a meeting between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
Mr. Trump said there was no “swap” for Hubbard, but appeared to tie Hubbard’s release to his decision to exempt Russia from sanctions passed by Congress.
“We were in the midst of negotiating,” the president told reporters last week. “And a lot of stupid people said, and people that don’t know how life works, they said, ‘Why aren’t you putting Russia sanctions and all this’ in the midst of a negotiation to try to get a long-term hostage back from Russia. If I would have done that, you would not have Mr. Hubbard coming back.”
The president has not reimposed those sanctions since Hubbard’s release.
