Stephen James Hubbard left the United States decades ago, first in Japan, then in Cyprus and finally in Ukraine. He doesn’t like government – any government.
He was a wanderer who grew up in a small town in Michigan, traveling the world, and then alone in the town of Izzi in eastern Ukraine, which the Russians invaded on February 24, 2022.
Now, Mr. Hubbard, a retired English teacher, turned 73 on Thursday, has become an unlikely pawn in the international war. He was arrested shortly after the invasion and accused him of fighting for Ukraine. They moved him to at least five different Russian detention centers before being hired for mercenaries.
In October, the Moscow court sentenced him to nearly seven years in a criminal colony.
His case is mostly kept under the radar. But last month, the State Department said Mr. Hubbard was “misconded in custody” – elevating his case and showing that the U.S. believes the allegations are fabricated.
A State Department spokesman said he should never be captured or moved to a Russian prison.
Mr. Hubbard’s sister and three former Ukrainian war prisoners controversial with Mr. Hubbard, who fought for Ukraine. The former inmate said they believe he would die if he did not release. They said he suffered the same torture as they suffered: repeated attacks by dog terrorist attacks, forced to stand all day every day, and even exposed for more than a month.
“They beat our ankles and forced us to shed, tearing the ligaments in the process,” said Ihor Shyshko, 41. “Many people were injured, some were permanent. The conditions were beyond the limits of inhumane.
“The same thing happened to Stephen, but for him it was even worse because he was American,” Mr. Shaisco added, who was released in a prisoner exchange last summer. “They rushed in and shouted in the corridor, ‘We know you’re American. You’re dead here!'”
The United States accused Russia of exaggerating and inventing criminal charges against Americans, so they could trade with Russians elsewhere, or use them as bargaining chips for international negotiations. Mr. Hubbard is one of 13 Americans now in a Russian prison after a major prisoner exchange in August. Mr. Hubbard is the oldest. He is also the only American to seize Russia from Ukraine.
Now only another American has been publicly designated as being wrongly detained in Russia.
Mr. Hubbard’s family could not find his prison. The Russian judge deleted his case files from a public perspective, including even basic information about the lawyer’s name. The New York Times couldn’t find him either.
A State Department spokesman said that despite Russia’s obligation to gain access, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has not met Mr. Hubbard. The embassy said it would not comment on his case due to privacy concerns.
Mr Shyshko said he tried to seek help from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, but he was unable to cross the front door.
“It’s really frustrating,” said Patricia Hubbard Fox, the only sibling of Mr. Hubbard, who added: “Now they’ve taken everything from him, even It’s his glasses.”
A quiet life
Mr. Hubbard has always been a lonely person. He likes his privacy. He doesn’t like email and social media. He suspected that government agencies may be monitoring Internet jobs and taxes that are being paid by the government.
He and his sister grew up in a small Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their single mothers sometimes abuse them. “We grew up at the end of the bullhead,” Ms. Hubbard Fox recalls.
As an adult, Mr. Hubbard always seemed to be searching: he recruited at a Bible Academy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but it lasted only for a year. He married 20-year-old Young.
Records show Mr. Hubbard joined the Air Force, but he left the National Guard after three years of active service, mainly Sacramento. He worked as an education assistant at the local Veterans Affairs Department and studied at a nearby business school. His marriage broke down and Mr. Hubbard’s wife won custody of three children.
Mr. Hubbard landed in Seattle, where he earned his master’s degree in English and met Japanese women who became his second wife, Ms. Hubbard Fox said.
In the mid-1980s, the couple moved to Japan, where Mr. Hubbard taught English and joined the Orthodox church. The couple had a son before their divorce. When his son grew up, Mr. Hubbard moved to Cyprus, where his first-married son lived, and he fell in love with another woman, Inna. She is Ukrainian.
In 2014, they moved to Izium. When he needed money, he told his sister that he was teaching English online. He did not speak Ukrainians, nor did he speak Russian.
Ms. Hubbard Fox said she last talked to her brother on Skype in September 2021 when he sat down for some porridge.
It is unclear whether the couple has been separated or whether Inna is on vacation. But when the Russians invaded in February 2022, Mr. Hubbard was alone.
A few weeks later, the Russians captured Iz. The next day, on April 2, 2022, Mr. Hubbard was detained.
The situation is vague. Russian authorities said Mr Hubbard had signed in February (a month he was 70 years old) to defend the regional territorial defense ministry to defend Ukraine and receive training, weapons, ammunition and $1,000 a month. They said he was arrested while at a military checkpoint.
Izium’s civil servant Alyona Hryban said it was unlikely. She said the territorial defense sector had few weapons. No one paid. “There are no elderly people there,” she added.
Mr Shyshko recalled that Mr Hubbard said he was detained at the checkpoint while he was fleeing.
“He wanted to get out of there, but he couldn’t do it,” Mr Shosko said.
‘He is every American’
Mr. Hubbard’s first internment camp is five miles away from the Russian border. Another prisoner of war, Andrii Stratular, the young girl’s spirit is related to her rape and murder. He reads it over and over again.
English-speaking Mr. Stratular was placed in Mr. Hubbard’s tent in June 2022.
“He said he started smiling that day,” recalled Mr Stratular, 30.
Mr Stratular said they spent 42 days together. Mr. Hubbard talks about his life: he traveled to the Grand Canyon. His baptism enters the Orthodox church. His Japanese wife Sumi. Their son Hisashi. His partner inna.
Throughout the imprisonment, Mr. Stratular recites his name: Hisashi. Sumi. inna. When he is released, he wants to tell someone about the Americans he meets.
Mr Stratular recalled that in late July 2022, Mr Hubbard was transferred.
In early September, a captured Ukrainian special forces official met Mr. Hubbard in the Oskol prison in Belgorod, which was on 9 It is about 80 miles northeast of the beginning of the month. After an interrogation that is more like torture, Huck said, he was taken to Mr. Hubbard’s cell, who gave him water and prayed for him.
The 33-year-old hacker said: “This is the first time a guy who prays for me, an old guy, a wise man, prays for me.
The hacker said he met Mr Hubbard again in Norwozbkov prison about a month later. Over two months, they were placed in nearby cells. “I heard everything that happened to him,” Hacker, who was released last spring, recalled.
Mr. Hubbard had problems with his kidney, stomach and rectum, Huck said. He’s bleeding. The Russian guards defeated him, forcing him to learn Russian words, Russian poets, Russian national anthem.
“Soldiers, Guards and Special Forces see him as a master,” the hacker said. “Because Stephen, he is an American. He is an American spider. He is an American in Michigan. He is every American.”
The former prisoner’s account could not be verified as Russian officials did not disclose information about Mr. Hubbard. But they remain consistent with each other and with other prisoners of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Mr. Shyshko said in 2023, Mr. Hubbard was moved to a prison in Pakino, about 170 miles east of Moscow, where he shared a cell with Mr. Shyshko and 13 other men.
There, the hacker and Mr. Shaisco said that prisoners were questioned, frequently tortured, shocked by electricity, beaten and burned.
Mr Shyshko said after Russians found scabies on prisoners, they were stripped and taken to a cold basement where they were forced to walk naked for a month and a half in circles wearing only slippers.
Mr Shyshko said the doctor told him: “‘scabies mites cannot breed in the cold, it will die with you.”
Lunch is often boiled with a few cabbage leaves. For dinner, the leftovers of Russian prisoners were mixed together, mixed together. Mr. Shyshko’s weight dropped from about 240 pounds to less than 130 pounds.
“Stephen, he never surrendered,” Mr. Shaisco said. “He kept telling us: ‘These people are not humans. Don’t lose hope. He stands on them and encourages us to stick with it.”
One day, Mr. Hubbard said he thought his sister might be looking for him.
Prison verdict
Ms. Hubbard Fox was worried about her brother when the war began. But she couldn’t reach him. Eventually, she discovered that the Russian had him: she saw an interview on Russian TV, and he echoed the key points of Russian conversations – often told what to say – and there was another video briefly posted on X, the latter in X Hit Mr. Hubbard. sandals.
She said she tried to talk to the U.S. authorities but it was hardly helpful. She wasn’t sure who to call.
In mid-May 2024, Mr. Hubbard disappeared from Pakino’s prison and later surfaced in a court lawsuit in Moscow. In a hearing, before the judge tried to the public, Ria Novosti reported that Mr. Hubbard had pleaded guilty to being a mercenary and said from the dock: “Yes, I agree to the indictment .”
In early October last year, Mr. Hubbard (bending over, his hair and beard roughly chopped and his glasses disappeared) was sentenced to six years and 10 months in prison.
Ms. Hubbard Fox said she hopes President Trump can deal with the Russians. “He is an actor and they know he won’t endure his nonsense,” Ms. Hubbard Fox said.
She said seeing her brother beaten with sandals reminded her of the abuse he was a child. She plans to sell her home in Colorado and buy a home in Oklahoma so her brother can live with her when he gets out.
“I love my home, but my brother lost everything,” she said. “So I do. I’m going to give him a home.”
The report was contributed by Hisako Ueno of Tokyo; Dzvinka Pinchuk, Yurii Shyvala and Oleksandra mykolyshyn from Keefe; and Shawn Hubler of Sacramento. Susan Beachy contributed the research.
