SAN ANTONIO – For Stephen Hubbard, the nightmare of four years in a Russian prison ended not with a formal announcement, but with the sight of an American flag waving from a plane.
The 74-year-old retired Michigan teacher, who was released Wednesday in a diplomatic breakthrough, had no idea he was being freed until the very last moment. His younger sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox, said that as he was transported from his prison cell to Moscow, her brother feared the worst.
“He didn’t know why he was being taken from the prison to Moscow, and he may have thought he was going to his death,” Hubbard Fox said during an interview Thursday in San Antonio, where her brother is currently undergoing medical evaluation.
The transition from the horrors of detention to the reality of freedom has been overwhelming. “He’s been kind of laughing a lot,” she added. “Like relief laughing. ‘Oh my God, you know, I’m free. This is really happening.’”
Hubbard’s release followed a phone call earlier this month between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the American leader requested the former teacher’s freedom. Hubbard, a U.S. Air Force veteran, had been living in Ukraine when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. He was subsequently accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian forces—an allegation consistently disputed by his legal team and the U.S. government, which had designated him as wrongfully detained.
In 2024, Hubbard was sentenced in a closed court proceeding to nearly seven years in prison. His sister described a harrowing ordeal during his incarceration, revealing that Hubbard was starved and beaten so severely that fellow inmates from Ukraine were forced to carry him.
According to Hubbard Fox, the psychological toll was compounded by his captors. “The only English they knew was ‘Die, American. Die,’” she recounted. She credited her brother’s survival to a defiant spirit, noting that the harassment only strengthened his resolve: “‘I’ll show them.’ I’m so proud of him.”
The road to his release was long and often shrouded in uncertainty. Hubbard Fox admitted she did not even know her brother’s whereabouts until a stranger in Ukraine tracked her down after spotting his name on a prison roster.
“God doesn’t answer prayers immediately sometimes, but he always answers my prayer,” she said. “And I said, ‘Jesus, get him home.’”
Hubbard, who had moved to Ukraine to be with a partner and remained in the country following the relationship’s end, is now looking toward a future away from the conflict. His sister indicated that he will likely move to Colorado to live with her, where the siblings are planning a long-awaited family reunion.
For now, the man who spent years fearing he would never see home again is safe, finally trading the cruelty of his captors for the safety of his family.
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