Russia has released a 74-year-old American citizen who was jailed for allegedly fighting on behalf of Ukraine, as President Vladimir Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg for talks.

Stephen Hubbard has been taken to Pulkovo Airport, Putin said during the meeting early on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump later said the former teacher was “on his way back home” and “there was no ‘swap’ necessary”.

Hubbard was sentenced to almost seven years in a penal colony in 2024. He was accused of serving in a defence unit in Izyum, Ukraine, when he was captured by Russian forces shortly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Writing on social media after Russian state media reported the release, Trump said it had followed a request he “made directly” to Putin last week.

Some other releases of detained Americans from Russia have been obtained through prisoner swaps.

Trump also appeared to defend his recent decision to suspend sanctions on Russia two days before they were due to come into force, writing that “if sanctions would have been placed”, negotiations for Hubbard’s release “would have come to a complete and total halt”.

The US State Department had previously classified Hubbard, from Michigan, as “wrongfully detained” and the US president had suggested on Tuesday that his release may be imminent.

“Watch what happens,” Trump told reporters, “we have been focused ⁠on ​Hubbard”.

CBS News, the BBC’s US media partner, reported that Hubbard had been in poor health and was expected to be flown to Texas for treatment.

Witkoff praised Putin for releasing Hubbard: “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian – you are a humanitarian also sir, and I salute that. I commend you.”

The US envoy, who had attended talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Norway the previous day, also asked Putin to consider renewing trilateral peace talks with Ukraine as the war grinds on in its fifth year.