An American teacher went to Ukraine. Now he is in a Russian prison.

Stephen James Hubbard left America decades ago, first for Japan, then Cyprus, and finally Ukraine. He didn't like the government – really government.

He was a wanderer, raised in a small town in Michigan and traveled the world before appearing alone in the eastern Ukraine town of Ijium when the Russians invaded on February 24, 2022.

Hubbard, a retired English teacher who is now 73 years old on Thursday, has become an unlikely pawn in the international war. The Russians arrested him shortly after the invasion and accused him of fighting for Ukraine. They moved him to at least five different Russian detention centres before they went to trial on charges of being a mercenary.

In October, a Moscow court convicted him and sentenced him to prison for almost seven years.

His lawsuit remains primarily under the radar. But last month, the State Department said Hubbard was “illegally detained.” It raises his case and shows that the US believes the charges are being manufactured.

A State Department spokesman said he should not be captured or moved to a Russian prison.

Hubbard's sister and three former Ukrainian prisoners were fighting with Hubbard, who said he fought for Ukraine. The previous prisoner says he believes he will die if he is not released. They say he endured the same torture they did: beat repeatedly, terrified by the dog, forced to stand up every day, every day, stripped naked for over a month.

“They beat our ankles, pushed us into the split and tore our ligaments in the process,” said 41-year-old Ihor Siszko. “Many of the men were injured, some were permanent. The conditions were inhuman.

“The same thing happened to Stephen, but it was even worse for him because he's an American,” added Sishko, who was released in prisoner exchange last summer. “They raided screaming in the hallway. “You know you're an American. You're dead here!”

The US accuses Russia of inflating and inventing criminal charges against Americans, so it can be traded with Russians held elsewhere or used as an international negotiation tip. After a major prisoner exchange in August, Hubbard is one of 13 Americans currently known to be held in Russian prisons. Mr. Hubbard is the oldest. He is also the only American known to be imprisoned in Russia after being taken from Ukraine.

Only one other American currently detained is publicly designated as being mistakenly detained in Russia.

Hubbard's family could not find a prison. A Russian judge deleted case files from public places, even basic information such as the name of his lawyer. The New York Times couldn't find him either.

According to a State Department spokesman, the US embassy in Moscow has not seen Hubbard despite Russia's obligation to grant access. The embassy said it would not comment on his case due to privacy concerns.

Sishko said he tried to ask the US embassy in Kiev for help but was unable to pass the front door.

“It's just really really upsetting,” said Patricia Hubbard Fox, 71, Hubbard's only brother.

A quiet life

Mr. Hubbard has always been a lonely man. He liked privacy. He wasn't fond of email or social media. He doubted government agencies that could be spying on internet posts and what the government spent taxes.

He and his sister grew up in Big Rapids, a very small Michigan city. Their single mothers sometimes abused them. “We grew up at the end of the bullfight,” recalls Hubbard Fox.

As an adult, Mr. Hubbard seemed constantly searching. He enrolled at Bible College in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but lasted only a year. He married Young at the age of 20.

Mr Hubbard joined the Air Force, but after three years of active duty he left two in the National Guard, mainly in Sacramento. He worked as an educational assistant in the local Veterans Affairs Division and studied at a nearby business college. His marriage fell apart, and Mr. Hubbard's wife gained custody of three children.

Hubbard landed in Seattle where he met a Japanese woman who earned a master's degree in English and became her second wife, Hubbard Fox said.

In the mid-1980s, the couple moved to Japan, where Hubbard taught English and joined the Eastern Orthodox Church. The couple had a son before they divorced. After his son grew up, Mr. Hubbard moved to Cyprus, where his first marriage was home to son, who fell in love with another woman, Inna. She was Ukrainian.

In 2014, they moved to Ijium. When he needed the money, he told his sister, he taught English online. He spoke neither Ukrainian nor Russians.

Hubbard Fox said he last spoke to his brother on Skype in September 2021 and sat down to eat an oridge.

It's not clear if the couple broke up or Inna was on vacation. However, when the Russians invaded in February 2022, Hubbard was alone.

A few weeks later, the Russians captured Izium. The following day, on April 2, 2022, Hubbard was taken into custody, the Ria Novosti State News Agency later reported.

The situation is ambiguous. Russian authorities signed up for the regional territorial defense division that February (the month he turned 70) to protect Ukraine, training $1,000 a month, weapons, ammunition, $1,000 He stated that he received it. They said he was arrested while manning the military checkpoint.

That's unlikely, said Ariona Fliban, a civil servant at Izium. She said there are few weapons in the territorial defense. No one was paid. “There were no old people there,” she added.

Sisko recalled saying that Hubbard was taken into custody at checkpoint while he was fled.

“He wanted to get out of there, but he couldn't,” Sisico said.

“He's all American.”

Hubbard's first detention camp was five miles above the Russian border. Another prisoner of war, Andri Stratulat, said the Russians gave Mr Hubbard two English books: “The Egg and I” was a 1945 memoir and a young wife on a chicken farm , “The Lovely Bones,” the 2002 novel “The Lovely Bones” young girl whose spirit matches her rape and murder. He read them many times.

Stratulat, who spoke English, was placed in Hubbard's tent in June 2022.

“He said that day he started smiling,” Stratulatt recalled.

They spent 42 days together, Stratulat said. Mr. Hubbard spoke about his life: a trip he took to the Grand Canyon. His baptism into the Eastern Orthodox Church. His Japanese wife, Sumi. Their son escaped. His partner, Inna.

Through his incarceration, Mr. Stratulat will recite those names to himself: Hisashi. Soothing. inna. When he was released he wanted to tell someone about the Americans he met.

In late July 2022, Hubbard was transferred, Stratulatt recalled.

A captured Ukrainian Special Forces officer with a hacker call sign met Mr Hubbard in early September at the Oskol prison in Belgorod, about 80 miles northeast of the detention camp. The hacker, after a tortured interrogation, he was taken to the cell with Mr. Hubbard, who gave him water and prayed for him.

“This is the first time a man, an old man, a clever man has prayed for me,” said the 33-year-old hacker.

The hacker said he met Hubbard again at Novodivkov prison about a month later. For two months they were housed in nearby cells. “I've heard everything that's happening to him,” recalls the hacker who was released last spring.

Hubbard had problems with his kidneys, stomach and rectal tract, hackers said. He was bleeding. The Russian security guard beat him and forced him to learn Russian language, Russian poets, and Russian national anthem.

“Soldiers, security guards and special forces saw him as a great enemy,” the hacker said. “Because it's Stephen, he's an American. He's an American spider. He's an American from Michigan. He's all American.”

The former prisoner's accounts are not validated as Russian officials have not revealed any information about Hubbard. But they coincided with each other and with other Ukrainian prisoners.

In 2023, Hubbard was moved to a prison in Pakino about 170 miles east of Moscow, where he shared cell with Sishko and 13 other men.

There, prisoners were questioned, often tortured, shocked by electricity, beaten and burned, Hacker said.

After the Russians find the scis in prisoners, they are stripped off and taken to a cold basement where they are forced to walk naked in circles wearing only slippers for a month and a half Shishko said.

Sishko said the doctor said, “The mites of scabismus can't be reproduced in the cold, it will die with you.”

Lunch was often boiling water with a few cabbage leaves. Dinner, leftovers from Russian prisoners, mixed together. Shyshko's weight has dropped from about 240 to less than 130 pounds.

“But Stephen, he never gave in,” Sisico said. “He kept saying to us: “These people are not human. Don't lose hope,” he confronted them and encouraged us to hold on. ”

One day, Mr. Hubbard said he thought his sister might be looking for him.

In prison

Hubbard Fox was worried about his brother when the war began. But she couldn't reach him. Eventually she learns that the Russians have him: she saw an interview on Russian television where he reflected the points of Russian stories – prisoners are often told what to say – and another video was briefly posted to X. Sandals.

She said she tried to speak to American authorities but had little help. And she didn't know who to call.

In mid-May 2024, Hubbard disappeared from the Pakino prison and later surfaced in a Moscow court case. At one hearing, before the judge closed the trial to the public, Leah Novosty said that Hubbard pleaded guilty to being a merc soldier, saying, “Yes, I agree to the charges.” I reported it.

In early October last year, Hubbard was bent, his hair and whiskers roughly chopped, and his glasses were gone – was sentenced to six years and 10 months in a prison colony.

Hubbard Fox said he hopes President Trump can deal with Russians. “He's an agent and they know he's not going to put up with their crap,” Hubbard Fox said.

She said seeing her brother being beaten in sandals remind her of seeing him being abused as a child. She plans to sell her home in Colorado and buy one in Oklahoma.

“I love my house, but my brother lost everything,” she said. “So I'm doing this. I'm going to provide him with a home.”

The report was contributed by Yugaueno of Tokyo. Dzvinka Pinchuk, Yurii Shyvala and Oleksandra Mykolyshyn from Kyiv. Sean Hubler of Sacramento. Susan Beachy contributed to the research.