ST PETERSBURG — Russia on Wednesday freed Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired American teacher jailed for more than four years, as President Vladimir Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff and, according to the Kremlin, agreed to restart three-way peace talks with the United States and Ukraine.

The release and the offer of new talks came on the same day, after months in which the Trump administration's push to end the war produced little. Trilateral rounds held in Abu Dhabi and Geneva in January and February yielded few results beyond prisoner exchanges, the Associated Press reported.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy aide, said after the meeting that Putin had agreed "in principle" to resume the trilateral talks after November 10, according to the AP. He said the discussions would focus on "building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends."

Ushakov said Moscow had raised "several practical considerations regarding the content of possible trilateral talks," NBC News reported. He also said a proposed meeting of the Russian, Chinese and US leaders at next month's APEC summit in Shenzhen was "not rejected by any of the capitals."

The talks at St Petersburg's Constantine Palace lasted about three hours, the AP reported. Ushakov and Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev joined Putin, while Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, took part by video link.

Witkoff told Putin there was "some degree of momentum" in the peace effort, according to the AP. NBC News reported that he said he had brought documents setting out approaches to a possible deal.

Hubbard was taken to St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, where Ushakov said he was handed over to Witkoff. His plane landed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas at about 10:49 p.m. local time on Wednesday, according to NBC News. CBS News reported that he is in poor health and was expected to be treated at a military hospital in Texas.

Video of the meeting showed Witkoff thanking Putin on Trump's behalf. "Because of you, he's going home to his family," the envoy said, before adding: "You are a humanitarian also, sir." The remark drew a backlash in the United States, CBS News reported.

The Kremlin described the release as a goodwill gesture, NBC News reported.

Trump said he asked Putin to free Hubbard during a phone call last week. In a post on Truth Social, he said the US had given nothing in exchange. "There was no 'swap' necessary for this release," he wrote.

Later in the day, Trump tied the release to his decision five days earlier to waive some new sanctions on Russia just before they were due to take effect. "If I would have done that, you would not have Mr. Hubbard coming back," he told reporters at the White House, according to CBS News. Putin praised the waiver, while members of Congress, including some Republicans, criticised it.

Trump also kept up pressure on Kyiv. "We've given a lot to Ukraine. We've gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss," he said, according to the AP.

Hubbard, a Michigan native who served in the US Air Force and National Guard, had lived in eastern Ukraine since about 2014 and taught English. Russian prosecutors said his home was the city of Izyum, where Russian forces detained him in April 2022 as they took control of it.

Prosecutors accused him of voluntarily joining a territorial defence battalion and fighting for Ukraine for money. He was convicted in 2024 of serving as a mercenary after a trial held behind closed doors, and sentenced to almost seven years in a penal colony. Russian state media reported that he pleaded guilty.

His family has maintained that he is innocent. His lawyer, Martin De Luca, said Hubbard told him the charges were false and that he was not part of any combat or military unit. The State Department had designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained, and he was the last American in Russia with that status, NBC News reported.

De Luca said his client was "overwhelmed with joy" but "in a fragile state." Hubbard's son, Joseph Coleman, is a Greek Orthodox priest living in Cyprus. Asked about the mercenary charge, Coleman told NBC News: "There's no evidence to that effect." Hubbard's sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox, told The New York Times that her brother spoke neither Ukrainian nor Russian, NBC News reported.

As many as 10 other Americans, including dual nationals, remain in Russian custody, CBS News reported. Former Marine Robert Gilman was freed in August on a humanitarian pardon after Trump appealed directly to Putin.

Witkoff arrived in Russia a day after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo, where Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb also took part. Støre said afterwards that the Russians may now also be "looking for opportunities for diplomacy."

Zelenskyy has said only a meeting of leaders can break the deadlock, and has called a freeze of the fighting the minimum required of Russia. "Right now, we have to freeze, and I think this is (the) real way to end this war," he said, according to the AP.

Støre said Witkoff planned to return to Oslo for further consultations after his visit to Russia. If Ushakov's timetable holds, negotiators from all three countries would meet again in the second half of November.