An American man has been sentenced to six years and ten months in a Russian prison for fighting as a paid mercenary for Ukraine.
Stephen Hubbard, 72, of Big Rapids, Michigan, appeared in court in Moscow on Monday handcuffed and wearing a beige jacket and a black hat, then removed the hat to reveal a shaved head.
On top of the prison sentence, Hubbard was ordered to pay the state about $4,700. This was reported by the state-run TASS news agency. The 72-year-old has been in custody since April 2022 and his sentence will include more than the two years he has already spent behind bars.
He will spend the remainder of his prison term in a labor camp, or “public order colony,” Judge Alexandra Kovalevskaya ruled.
The conviction comes after Hubbard accepted mercenary charges and pleaded guilty, although Hubbard’s family members dispute his confession. The 72-year-old allegedly said in an interview distributed to Russian media that he was “incited by the Ukrainian media” to join the army, and that Russian soldiers “treated him well” when he was captured, TASS reported.
Hubbard’s sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox He told Reuters In an interview, she said she did not believe her brother took up arms against Russia, taking into account his age and the fact that he holds pro-Russian views.
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“It’s not military at all,” Fox said. “He never had a gun, he didn’t own a gun, he didn’t do any of that… He’s more of a peacemaker.”
Fox and another relative told Reuters that Hubbard spent decades abroad teaching English, including in Japan and Cyprus. He moved to Ukraine in 2014 and lived for a while with his girlfriend, a Ukrainian woman, before they separated and he began living alone in the city of Izyum, located south of Kharkiv near the Ukrainian-Russian border.
His family members described him as a reclusive person with few connections with local residents. The last time Fox spoke to her brother was via Skype in September 2021, about six months before he was arrested by Russia.
Hubbard is the first known American to be convicted for fighting as a mercenary in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Russian news reports said the charges carried a potential 15-year prison sentence, but prosecutors requested that Hubbard’s age be taken into account with his guilty plea.
Arrests of Americans have become increasingly common in Russia in recent years. Concerns have grown that Russia may target US citizens for arrest to later be used as bargaining chips in talks to return Russians convicted of crimes in the United States and Europe.
Also on Monday, a court in the city of Voronezh sentenced American Robert Gilman to seven years and a month in prison for assaulting law enforcement officers while serving a sentence for another assault.
According to Russian news reports, Gelman was arrested in 2022 on charges of causing a drunken disturbance on a commuter train and then assaulting a police officer while in custody. He is serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence on this charge.
The official RIA Novosti news agency said that last year, the man assaulted a prison inspector during a search of his cell, and then beat an official in the investigation committee, leading to the new ruling.
The United States and Russia in August completed the largest prisoner exchange in post-Soviet history, a deal involving 24 people, after many months of negotiations and concessions from other European countries, which released Russians in their custody as part of the exchange. Many American citizens remain behind bars in Russia after the swap.
—With files from The Associated Press
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