US President Donald Trump stated that if he had implemented the anti-Russian sanctions provided for by the “Gramm Law”, negotiations with Russia regarding the release of American Stephen Hubbard, convicted by the Moscow City Court, would have been completely halted.
elchi reports that he wrote about this on the “Truth Social” network.
“If sanctions were imposed, of course, these negotiations would have been completely halted,” he said.
Trump stated that Hubbard had already returned home and that Moscow had not demanded anything in return for his release, releasing him “as a sign of respect” to Trump. He also called such a situation “unprecedented for Russia”: “There was no need for any “prisoner exchange” for this release”.
On October 20, Trump announced that he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to release Hubbard from prison during a phone call. In 2024, the Moscow City Court found the elderly American guilty of participating in an armed conflict as a mercenary (Part 3 of Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced him to 6 years and 10 months in a general regime colony. The investigation and court determined that Hubbard had been living in Ukraine since 2014 and signed a contract with the Izyum territorial defense battalion in February 2022.
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