Freed American Stephen Hubbard was tortured in Russian jails, fellow inmates say

Stephen Hubbard spent his four years in Russian custody getting beaten, mocked and, at least once, electrocuted with a stun gun, according to two Ukrainians who were locked up beside him. Dmytro Khyliuk and Ihor Shyshko told the BBC they watched guards single out the American from the moment he landed at the Novozybkov prison in Bryansk in September 2022. The accounts line up with what Hubbard's family has long claimed: that he was tortured behind bars.

Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired English teacher, was seized in April 2022 when Russian troops rolled into Izyum, the eastern Ukrainian city where he lived with his Ukrainian partner. Moscow accused him of serving in Ukraine's armed forces, convicted him at a trial in the capital and handed him six years and 10 months. He walked free after four and a half years, on the same day US special envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg to talk about the war.

The former prisoners say Hubbard's passport was his punishment. Khyliuk recalled guards prowling inspections asking which cell held the American, then threatening and mocking him. Shyshko said officers forced him to study Russian, sing the national anthem and recite prison rules he couldn't read, and that he was beaten on the legs, back and arms, denied food and medical care and left to freeze. Shyshko also alleges Hubbard was subjected to sexual humiliation for the staff's entertainment.

Conditions were brutal for everyone. Khyliuk described broken windows, biting cold and detainees huddling in the bathroom for warmth at Novozybkov, and a diet of porridge, bread and potatoes at the next stop, Pakino. There, Shyshko said Hubbard's knees and feet were covered in rot, his body riddled with scabies, and that he once bandaged the weakened American himself because the prison doctor refused. Both men described daily beatings, forced running, stress positions and a handler who set a dog on prisoners.

Khyliuk claims Hubbard was hidden away soon after arriving at Pakino so a visiting International Red Cross team wouldn't see the state of him. The ICRC said in a statement that wherever it is granted access it asks to see every individual and assess their conditions, and that discussions with parties to the conflict continue.

Khyliuk, a journalist seized in the invasion's first days near Kyiv, went home in a prisoner exchange in August 2025 and called Russian captivity a torture machine run in the spirit of Stalin. He said he was glad Hubbard made it out — it was never his war — but branded the timing shameful PR for a US president losing votes in Congress. Trump said he had asked Putin to release Hubbard in a phone call the week before. Shyshko, meanwhile, is holding out for one thing: that the men who did this answer for it.