Russia releases retired American teacher

New this morning, Russia early today released a retired American teacher who the United States says was wrongfully imprisoned. His name is Stephen Hubbard. He's in his 70s. There's conflicting reports about his exact age. He met a Ukrainian woman and moved to Ukraine in 2014. The Russians arrested him in 2022 and later convicted him on charges of working as a mercenary fighting for Ukraine, which the United States denies. President Trump says he asked Russian President Putin to free Hubbard. That release comes as U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff arrives in Russia to talk about ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. And to talk more about all of this, we're joined now by David McEwen, our political science professor at Sonoma State. Hey, David, good morning. Good morning, Dave. Nice to join you. Yeah, there's a lot to talk about. So this prisoner release, Witkoff arriving to talk about the war with Ukraine. What are your thoughts about all this? All right, we're in a fresh era of tensions between the United States and Ukraine that we've supported since the Russian invasion there. So this Witkoff arrival in St. Petersburg, an important symbolic visit in an important city with Russian officials was previewed yesterday when Witkoff met with Vladimir Zelensky and representatives of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin knows this. He knows that U.S.-Ukraine relations are strained. And he knows that Donald Trump, the president, waived sanctions, the sanctions bill that was passed. He waived those sanctions last week. That's the bill that Lindsey Graham was pushing and that was passed in the Senate a few weeks ago. All of this emboldens Russia. And so the Russians in an attempt to have some momentum on their side and negotiations with Steve Hubbard there's still eight Americans in Russia, there's two dual citizens there and it places a lot of import if you will on these uh new phase of where the United States and Russia goes and what the U.S. Ukrainian relationship looks like especially moving forward as the Russians are having more and more attacks on Kyiv headed to a winter to upset their energy supplies. Now, do you see any of this bouncing back or hurting President Trump or Republicans because of what Vladimir Putin just did? All right. So there are Republicans who are upset about the diesel deal, about the sanctions being waived. And there has been this kind of bipartisan move to do some things against the president. But after the midterm elections, because the midterms are dominating what's going on, because of the upset that we see with American citizens related to the price of gas, affordability, price of groceries, these types of issues, Republicans have faced a number of headwinds. In a normal midterm election, you see a flip of houses, trifectas, if you want to think of it that way, Republicans owning the Senate, the House, and the presidency. Trifectas don't last long in American politics. So there are some of those that believe that some of these issues rebound or take off, if you will, after the midterms, after things kind of settled down. Let's see how the president reacts to that, because in the past, the president, when backed into a corner in these things, of course, lashes out. So this is an important development. It's good news for Hubbard and his family. There's still more Americans that are in Russia. Let's see how this gets handled as well. There's an organization called Global Reach, which plays an important role for families and advocating for them. They work typically with the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs in the State Department. There's a long process that's involved here, so it usually takes years to get Americans out of Russia. This, again, an important development, but one that does have long-range effects for the U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Ukrainian relationship. All right, David. All right, so Stephen Hubbard's been released by Russia. We can keep watching this. David McEwen, our political science professor at Sonoma State, thank you for being with us on Mornings on 2. Always a pleasure, Dave. Nice to see you. All right, David.