In brief
U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard, freed in June 2024, was accused of suffering torture and sexual abuse during his four‑year stay in Novozybkov and Pakino jails, according to former Ukrainian prisoners Dmytro Khyliuk and Ihor Shyshko. Witnesses described beatings, an electric stun gun, and forced humiliation by guards. Hubbard’s release coincided with a meeting between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin, following a request from former President Donald Trump.
Former Ukrainian soldiers, Dmytro Khyliuk and Ihor Shyshko, claim they saw Stephen Hubbard – a 74‑year‑old American – beaten and humiliated while imprisoned in Russia.
Hubbard was seized in April 2022 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum, during the Russian occupation, and later convicted in Moscow for allegedly serving in a Ukrainian armed‑forces unit.
In the Novozybkov jail near the Polish border, Khyliuk says guards questioned him about his nationality, threatened him and forced him to repeat the Russian national anthem in a language he could not read.
"They beat him on the legs, on the back, on the arms, and he was denied food and medical care, kept in the cold," Shyshko told US‑based reporters.
Both witnesses corroborate Hubbard’s family allegations that he suffered electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other forms of torture for the entertainment of Russian guards.
Hubbard spent four and a half years in Russia, released on the same day US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg to discuss Ukraine. The release followed a letter from former US President Donald Trump asking Putin to free Hubbard.
While the Ukrainian witnesses describe a regime comparable to Stalin’s, Hubbard’s eventual return to the United States appears to have been a victory for a civil‑society effort to secure his release.
