Russia Sentences 72-Year-Old American on Charges of Fighting for Ukraine

Stephen James Hubbard, a native of Big Rapids, Mich., whose family says is an English teacher, was sentenced to six years and 10 months in a penal colony.

A 72-year-old U.S. citizen, whose family says is an English teacher, was sentenced by a Moscow court Monday to six years and 10 months in a penal colony on charges of serving as a mercenary in Ukraine, becoming the latest in a list of Americans serving time in Russia.

In a statement, the Moscow City Court said that Stephen James Hubbard, a native of Big Rapids, Mich., enlisted with a territorial defense unit in the Ukrainian town of Izium during the first weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The court said that Mr. Hubbard had been receiving a monthly salary of $1,000.

Russian state news agencies reported last week that Mr. Hubbard pleaded guilty to the charge. They also reported, citing Russian prosecutors, that he was detained after Izium was captured by Russian forces in April 2022 and that he had been provided with training and ammunition to fight for Ukraine. It was not clear why it took more than two years for his case to reach trial.

Mr. Hubbard’s sister, Trisha Hubbard Fox, denied the Russian allegations, saying that her brother was “never a mercenary” and had been teaching English abroad. In a post on Facebook, Ms. Hubbard Fox said that Russia “kidnapped” him.

“The Ukrainian military will NOT accept” volunteers older than 60, Ms. Hubbard Fox said in late September in a Facebook post. “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.”

Mr. Hubbard’s lawyer told Tass, a Russian state news agency, that Mr. Hubbard planned to appeal the sentence.

As the relationship between Moscow and Washington plunged in recent years to levels unseen since the end of Cold War, the Russian government began seeing American citizens as potential assets who could be used as bargaining chips. More than a dozen Americans have been detained in Russia over the past decade and given harsh sentences on charges that have been condemned as politically motivated by the United States and rights groups.

Some detentions have resulted in prisoner exchanges, with Russia getting back some of its nationals being kept in U.S. and other Western prisons. On Aug. 1, Russia and Western countries, including the United States, conducted the most sweeping prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War. Russia and Belarus released 16 people, including Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, while Western states released Russian spies, assassins and cybercriminals.

At least 10 American citizens are still being held in Russian prisons, including Marc Fogel, a history teacher who worked for almost a decade at the Anglo-American school in Moscow. In 2021, when trying to enter Russia, Mr. Fogel was arrested and accused of smuggling drugs after a small amount of medical marijuana was discovered in his luggage. His relatives have said it was to treat severe pain.

Russian forces occupied Izium, where Mr. Hubbard lived before being detained, in April 2022. Russian troops withdrew from the town, a major logistics center in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, in September that year after a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

In May 2022, Mr. Hubbard appeared in a video interview on Telegram, a social messaging app, in which he said that he had lived in Izium since 2014 with his wife Inna. In the interview, he said he did not pay much attention to Ukrainian politics and “lived happily with his wife.”

In a video from the court, published by Astra, a Russian news outlet, Mr. Hubbard appeared frail, barely able to stand in his glassed-off courtroom cell, and slowly removed a black hat he was wearing as the judge read her ruling.

In a separate ruling on Monday, a court in the Russian city of Voronezh sentenced another American, Robert Gilman, to seven years and one month in a high-security prison colony for assaulting a prison official, a state investigator and another state official while serving a sentence for an earlier assault conviction.

Mr. Gilman, a 30-year-old former Marine, told RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, that he wanted to be exchanged in a prisoner swap.