Elderly US citizen pleads guilty in Russia of fighting for Ukraine

Stephen James Hubbard, 72, was allegedly fighting in Izyum before he was captured by Russian forces in April 2022.

Stephen James Hubbard, a US citizen, has pleaded guilty in a Moscow court to charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.

RIA said 72-year-old Hubbard admitted in a hearing at the Moscow City Court on Monday that he had been paid to fight for Ukraine against Russia.

“Yes, I agree with the indictment,” RIA quoted him as saying.

Last week, a court ordered Hubbard to be placed into pre-trial detention until March 26, 2025. He faces a sentence of between seven and 15 years if convicted.

Hubbard’s sister Patricia Fox cast doubt on his reported confession, saying her brother was too old to fight. She said he had been living in Ukraine since 2014 and she had last spoken to him over Skype in September 2021.

“He is so non-military,” she told the Reuters news agency by phone. “He never had a gun, owned a gun, done any of that…He’s more of a pacifist.”

RIA, citing a prosecutor in court, said Hubbard had signed a contract with a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Izyum at the start of the war in February 2022.

The prosecution said he had been promised $1,000 a month and was provided with training, weapons and ammunition. RIA quoted the prosecutor as saying Hubbard was captured by Russian soldiers on April 2 that year, just weeks after Moscow had started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is unclear how he ended up in Moscow.

English teacher

Hubbard is one of at least 10 Americans behind bars in Russia, nearly two months after a prisoner swap on August 1 between Moscow and the West saw the release of three Americans and dozens of others.

A spokesperson for the US Embassy in the Russian capital said in a statement last week that it was aware that one of its citizens had been detained, referring to Hubbard, but declined to comment further.

Originally from Big Rapids, Michigan, Hubbard worked for decades as an English teacher abroad, including in Japan and Cyprus, his sister said.

Fox added that her brother had lived with a Ukrainian woman for a time, surviving on a small pension. When she last spoke to him, he had split from his partner and was living alone, she said.

Fox said she had received little information about her brother’s status for months until a video surfaced online.

The video, posted to YouTube in May 2022 by an account with just more than 100 followers, shows a bearded man in a brown sweater sitting facing the camera and answering questions from an off-camera interviewer, who speaks with accented English.

It is unclear where and when it was filmed, but Fox identified the man as her brother.

In the video, the man says he understands why Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine and expresses hope that the war will end soon.