Stephen James Hubbard, a 73-year-old retired American teacher, has been located in a Russian prison in Mordovia after being taken from his home in eastern Ukraine in 2022. For months, his family had no idea of his whereabouts until he was able to call one of his sons in recent weeks, according to Martin De Luca, his lawyer. “He’s had a rough three and a half years,” De Luca said. Ukrainian prisoners of war told The New York Times that Hubbard was tortured because he was American and that they feared for his life. He was “beaten, forced to stand all day, given little food and poor medical care,” the newspaper reported. Russia convicted Hubbard of being a mercenary last October and sentenced him to nearly seven years in prison. The Kremlin so far hasn’t commented on Hubbard’s case. Washington has demanded his immediate release, but Russia has not granted United States Embassy in Moscow access to him. Hubbard is the only American remaining in Russia who has been designated as “wrongfully detained” by the State Department—meaning the U.S. believes Russia has fabricated his charges.
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