The torture of an American prisoner in Russia

Torture, humiliation, hunger: this is how Ukrainian soldier Igor Chychko describes his two years of detention in Russia, and those of Stephen Hubbard, an American septuagenarian detained in secret and sentenced in October in Moscow for “mercenarism” for the benefit of kyiv.

Taken by the Russian army in April 2022, Stephen Hubbard was sentenced to six years and ten months in prison on October 7, 2024, following a closed-door trial that was as surprising as it was expeditious. The United States says it has only “limited” information on his case due to a refusal of cooperation from Moscow. Russia had revealed only ten days earlier, on September 27, that it had held this 72-year-old man for two and a half years. He appeared in court, frail, pale and struggling to move.

Igor Chychko was taken prisoner in May 2022, then released in an exchange in May 2024. An AFP journalist got to know him in August, while he was being treated for trauma due to detention. He then recounted having been imprisoned with an elderly American, before Moscow revealed that it was detaining Stephen Hubbard. In two interviews given in September and October to AFP, Igor Chychko detailed his relationship with Stephen Hubbard and their lives in two prisons in Russia. The Russian authorities, the only ones capable of doing so, did not respond to AFP’s questions and therefore did not confirm that the two men were detained together. Many other prisoners said they suffered mistreatment similar to that reported by Igor Chychko.

According to the latter, the two men were incarcerated in Novozybkov, in the Bryansk region (western Russia) from September 2022 to May 2023. Sometimes, they were in neighboring cells. Then, until spring 2024, they were in penal colony No. 7 in Pakino (Vladimir region, 270 km east of Moscow), where the two inmates shared the same cell for a while. Before September 2022, Igor Chychko says he was detained in Stary Oskol, in the Russian region of Belgorod (west), and believes that Stephen Hubbard was also there although they did not meet there. The presence of a foreigner among Ukrainian prisoners of war was unusual. “It wasn’t very clear what he was doing there,” said Igor Chychko, 41, with deep dark circles and sunken cheeks from the “801 days” he spent in captivity.

According to him, the American suffered the same ordeal as his unfortunate Ukrainian comrades: all were beaten, humiliated, starved by their guards, according to the soldier who says he was a direct witness to the abuse inflicted on Stephen Hubbard and having endured them himself. “They beat him all the time, like all of us,” he said during a meeting in Kharkiv. “They hit him with sticks, batons, kicks. They attacked him with dogs (…) they made him run, did not feed him, made him crawl in the corridors,” he explains again. Guards at Novozybkov “deliberately” hit inmates’ genitals, he said, and forced prisoners, including Stephen Hubbard, to “simulate” sexual acts with each other to humiliate them.

Igor Chychko says that the septuagenarian, with whom he communicated as best he could in English, confided to him that he had been tortured using “electric shocks”. These abuses allegedly took place during interrogations which the Ukrainian did not attend, but the ex-detainee notes that the torture was not exceptional, revealing his scars on his hands and his hearing aid, the ex-prisoner who partially lost his hearing as a result of the beatings.

According to the official version, presented at the old man’s trial and published by official Russian media, the American national was taken prisoner on April 2, 2022 during the occupation of Izyum, a town in northeastern Ukraine, liberated Since. He had lived there since 2014 with his Ukrainian partner. Stephen Hubbard recounted this journey to his fellow Ukrainian inmate. According to his Russian accusers, Stephen Hubbard joined a Ukrainian territorial defense battalion at the start of the Russian invasion and was paid “at least $1,000 a month.”

Igor Chychko explains that according to Stephen Hubbard, the latter was arrested by Russian soldiers near a checkpoint in Izioum: “They understood (…) that he was American, that he had cash on him. Once in prison, Stephen Hubbard was mistreated despite his age by the guards precisely because he was American, according to his fellow prisoner. “Understand, for our guards, America is the incarnation of Evil. They are convinced that the Americans must be annihilated,” he emphasizes.

Among the abuses suffered by the detainees, hunger. According to Igor Chychko, they were deliberately malnourished and deprived of meals in cases of indiscipline. But Stephen Hubbard “did not do what they told him” to do, says Igor Chychko.

In Pakino, “the conditions were terrible. I didn’t know that people bloated from hunger. And then we all began to swell, and various putrefactions appeared.

Stephen Hubbard was also allegedly subjected to mistreatment by a doctor nicknamed “Doctor Death” due to his cruelty. To “treat” scabies, this man forced inmates, including Stephen Hubbard, to remain naked in “cold and damp” rooms for stays that could last several weeks.

And Stephen Hubbard demanded to contact his family, the American or even Ukrainian authorities, says the soldier. He didn’t understand why the United States couldn’t “get him out of there.”

The former Ukrainian prisoner was reunited with his wife and three children, but lives with psychological and physical after-effects. Today, he wishes his American companion could return home and tell his story himself. According to Igor Chychko, Stephen Hubbard will not be able to “hold out” for long physically and mentally. At this point, He is already “between life and death.”