Russia frees an American and agrees to talks. The Russian diesel behind the deal would cover less than a day of U.S. demand

By Staff Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG — Russia freed a 74-year-old American on Wednesday and agreed “in principle” to resume three-way peace talks with the United States and Ukraine after Nov. 10, handing President Donald Trump a diplomatic win less than two weeks before the midterm elections.

The other half of the bargain is arriving by sea. Russian officials said the first tanker carrying Russian diesel to the United States would leave Thursday, part of an initial shipment of about 300,000 tonnes under the deal Mr. Trump struck with Moscow this month, The Guardian reported.

A release, and a compliment

Stephen Hubbard, a retired teacher from Michigan, had spent more than four years in Russian custody on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine, which he denies. He was the last American the State Department designated as wrongfully detained in Russia, NBC News reported. His plane landed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas late Wednesday.

Russia released him without a prisoner swap. Mr. Trump said he had asked President Vladimir Putin for the release directly in a phone call last week.

“The United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return — an unprecedented situation for Russia,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“He’s out of Russia territory. He is free, praise God,” his sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox, told The Associated Press, adding that her brother had suffered beatings and starvation in custody.

Mr. Hubbard was handed to U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who met Mr. Putin at the Constantine Palace outside St. Petersburg, his ninth visit to Russia on the war. In a televised portion of the meeting, Mr. Witkoff praised the Russian leader, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court over the deportation of Ukrainian children.

“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Mr. Witkoff said.

What Moscow agreed to

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Russia is ready to resume trilateral talks from mid-November on “the establishment of a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the end of the conflict,” NBC reported. Mr. Witkoff called the meeting “constructive” and said he had brought papers outlining ideas for a deal.

The Kremlin has not moved off its core demands, including control of all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, and Mr. Putin has said he would meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy only once a deal is finished, and in Moscow. Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid continued Wednesday, killing at least nine civilians, according to NBC.

Mr. Trump told reporters a deal might be close. “We are maybe close to a deal for the first time in a long time,” he said.

Kyiv’s relationship with Washington is strained. Ukraine has complained about gaps in U.S. intelligence-sharing and restrictions on its use of Starshield, the military version of Elon Musk’s Starlink. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday the restrictions were Mr. Musk’s decision, governed by a commercial contract.

The diesel math

For Western New York, the deal’s most tangible piece is the fuel. Mr. Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel as part of his arrangement with Mr. Putin, and has said negotiations to free Mr. Hubbard would have halted had he not waived new sanctions.

The first shipment is small against U.S. demand. At a standard conversion of about 7.45 barrels per tonne, 300,000 tonnes of diesel is roughly 2.2 million barrels. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest weekly report put U.S. demand for distillate fuel, the category that includes diesel and heating oil, at 3.7 million barrels a day in the week ending Oct. 16. The whole first shipment would cover less than a day.

The same report shows national distillate inventories at 104.3 million barrels, 9.7 percent lower than a year earlier. Energy analysts quoted by The Guardian questioned whether the Russian volumes are large enough to ease prices before Election Day.

Local drivers and farmers are paying for that tightness. Diesel in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metro averaged $6.36 a gallon early Wednesday, according to AAA, up from $3.86 a year earlier, as the Chronicle reported. The squeeze also reaches Western New York households that heat with oil, which the Chronicle reported are paying 65 percent more as the Strait of Hormuz crisis drags on.

The questions ahead

Mr. Hubbard’s family thanked the president. “Our family can attest that there are wonderful blessings to be found along the hard road to peace,” they said in a statement.

Whether that road ends in a settlement Ukraine can accept is the larger question for Washington, and for Ukrainians in Western New York who have watched the war from here, including those living under Temporary Protected Status, whose designation passed its Oct. 19 deadline without a decision from Washington.

The answers to watch for in mid-November: whether Russia agrees to a ceasefire on energy targets before winter, what security guarantees Kyiv is offered, whether the sanctions relief on diesel grows into broader relief for Russian exports, and whether the fuel actually lowers what Western New Yorkers pay at the pump.