U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is facing immediate backlash for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "humanitarian" after he released 74-year-old Stephen Hubbard, an American who had been imprisoned in Russia for four years and who had been determined to be wrongfully detained. "You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian," Witkoff told Putin Wednesday in response to Hubbard's release. "You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again." Witkoff made the comment in St. Petersburg during a visit with the Russian president that was aimed at moving toward a resolution of the Ukraine war that Putin started four and a half years ago.