Ukrainians Say American Was Beaten in Russian Jails

Russian guards beat a retired American English teacher with stun guns, denied him food and medical care, and left him with rot on his knees and feet, two Ukrainian prisoners who shared his confinement said. Stephen Hubbard, 74, was released on October 23 after four and a half years in Russian custody.

Dmytro Khyliuk, a journalist, met Hubbard in September 2022 at Novozybkov prison in Bryansk, near the Ukrainian border. He said officers sought the American out during cell inspections. "They came during inspections and were asking: in which cell is the American? And then they used obscene words. They threatened him, they mocked him from the first days," Khyliuk said.

Ihor Shyshko, a captured Ukrainian soldier, said guards ordered Hubbard to learn Russian, sing the national anthem and recite prison schedule rules he could not read. Shyshko reported seeing guards strike Hubbard on the legs, back and arms and shock him with a stun gun. He said Hubbard was kept cold, withheld food and medical treatment, and subjected to sexual humiliation by staff.

Hubbard was seized in April 2022 when Russian forces occupied Izyum, the eastern Ukrainian city where he lived with his Ukrainian partner. He was accused of serving in Ukraine's armed forces, tried in Moscow and sentenced to six years and 10 months. Both Ukrainians were held with him while he awaited trial, and their accounts align with statements from his family that he was tortured in prison.

Khyliuk said he could hear complaints from the neighbouring cells as Hubbard's health declined, and that guards increasingly sent him to the prison doctor. He described broken windows, freezing temperatures and detainees crowding into bathrooms for warmth during time outside their cells. The two men saw Hubbard again at Pakino, where Shyshko said Hubbard's condition deteriorated further. Shyshko recalled bandaging him at the medical centre after a doctor refused, adding that Hubbard was weak and barely able to move. The prisoners were fed porridge, bread and potatoes, and faced beatings, forced running and stress positions each day. Shyshko also said a handler set a dog on prisoners to bite them.

Khyliuk said that after the move to Pakino, Hubbard was concealed from International Red Cross visitors. "They saw only what was shown to them and they were happy with that," he said. The International Committee of the Red Cross said that wherever it is granted access, it asks to see every individual and assess their conditions, and that it continues talks with the parties to the conflict on that question. Khyliuk said Hubbard disappeared from the prison in 2024 and he assumed he had been released.

Hubbard was freed after four and a half years on the day US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg to discuss the war in Ukraine. Witkoff called the Russian president a "humanitarian". US President Donald Trump said he had asked Putin to free Hubbard in a call the previous week. Khyliuk, who returned to Ukraine in an August 2025 prisoner exchange, called Russian captivity a "torture machine". Shyshko said he wants the perpetrators held to account: "Evil must be punished, and so it will be."}

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