In October 2026, President Trump said he asked Vladimir Putin to release Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American seized from Ukraine in 2022, accused of being a mercenary and sent to a penal colony. Hubbard has since walked out of a Russian prison after four years and will be flown to Texas for treatment in a military hospital. Former Ukrainian POWs now say Hubbard was tortured, starved and beaten in Russian captivity, shifting the story from the homecoming to what the four years cost him.