A 72-year-old American kidnapped in the occupied city was convicted in Moscow as a Ukrainian mercenary
A court in Moscow has found guilty of mercenarism and sentenced to 6 years and 10 months in prison a 72-year-old US citizen, Stephen James Hubbard, who was abducted by Russian troops in occupied Izium in April 2022.
The city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region was considered occupied from April 1 to September 10, 2022. Kremlin-controlled Russian media, citing the prosecutor in the Hubbard case, reported that the man was kidnapped on 2 April 2022.
On May 30, 2022, a little-known Russian Telegram channel published a video with Hubbard answering questions from a man speaking broken English with a strong Russian accent. Hubbard is forced to answer questions about his attitude to the Ukrainian and Russian armies, the shelling of Izium, etc. It is clear from the man’s reactions to the questions that he understands what the interviewer wants to hear from him, but he is constantly hesitating and confused. The edited recording makes no mention of Hubbard’s participation in the fighting on the side of Ukraine.
Still image from the Hubbard’s “interview,” allegedly with a Russian serviceman, spring 2022
The abduction and detention of the American in Russia for 2.5 years was not publicly known until the end of September, when the media and relatives began to write about his case. Hubbard’s sister, Trisha Hubbard Fox, wrote in a Facebook-post on September 28 that the man was “just” transferred from a provincial Russian prison to Moscow, where he will be tried as a Ukrainian mercenary. Hubbard Fox noted that this is a charge that Russians routinely bring against captured Americans.
“Stephen has never been and is not a Mercenary. The Ukrainian military will not accept volunteers of ages 60 and older and Stephen was 70 when they kidnapped him. Russia knows this but to save face for kidnapping, beating and holding my brother all this time, their courts are charging Stephen James Hubbard anyway,” she wrote.
According to Hubbard Fox, cited by Reuters, before moving to Ukraine in 2014, her brother worked as an English teacher in Japan and Cyprus. In Izyum, he lived on a very modest pension with his Ukrainian wife, whom he had separated from shortly before the kidnapping. Hubbard had very few other local contacts, as he spoke neither Ukrainian nor Russian.
According to the Russian prosecution, Hubbard signed a contract with the Izyum territorial defence at the beginning of the full-scale war and was to receive a thousand dollars a month for his service. Kremlin-controlled Russian media claimed that the man had “pleaded guilty,” but also that his lawyer was going to appeal. Although Hubbard’s sister expected a lengthy trial, the verdict was passed at the first court hearing.
The only available video from the closed-door trial, published by the ASTRA Telegram channel, shows Hubbard struggling to even get out of the dock to hear the verdict.
According to Reuters, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had little information about Hubbard’s case because Russia does not allow the American consul to visit the man.