MOSCOW (Reuters) -A Russian court on Monday sentenced a 72-year-old U.S. citizen to six years and 10 months in prison after convicting him in a closed-door trial of serving as a mercenary for Ukraine, a Reuters reporter in the courtroom said.
Investigators said Stephen James Hubbard, a native of Michigan, was paid $1,000 per month to serve in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the eastern city of Izyum, where he had been living since 2014.
They said Hubbard was provided with training, weapons and ammunition when he allegedly signed up in February 2022, the same month that Moscow sent thousands of troops into Ukraine. Hubbard was detained by Russian soldiers on April 2 of that year, the RIA state news agency quoted the prosecutor as saying last month.
Russian state media said Hubbard had pleaded guilty to the charge.
But in interviews last month, Hubbard's sister Patricia Hubbard Fox and another relative cast doubt on his reported confession, telling Reuters he held pro-Russian views and was unlikely to have taken up arms at his age.
On Monday, Hubbard, wearing a beige sweater, sat in a glass courtroom cage in handcuffs. He stood up, seemingly with difficulty, to hear the judge in the Moscow City Court pronounce him guilty, removing his hat to reveal a shaved head.
Hubbard listened without visible emotion to the judge before conferring with his lawyer, who later declined to comment to reporters. RIA reported that Hubbard's lawyer will appeal the verdict.
Reuters was unable to confirm how Hubbard was detained. The Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry has not replied to multiple messages seeking comment.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had limited information about the case because Russia has refused to grant consular access, but confirmed that the 72-year-old prisoner was arrested two years ago in Ukraine.
"Russia should grant consular access to him for the United States," Miller said. "We're looking at the case very closely and considering our next steps."
In interviews, Fox and the other relative portrayed Hubbard as an isolated figure who had grown estranged from some of his family during his decades abroad teaching English, including in Japan and Cyprus.
Fox said Hubbard moved to Ukraine in 2014 and lived there for a time with a Ukrainian woman, surviving off a small pension of around $300 a month. He never learned Russian or Ukrainian, and had few connections to locals, she said.
Hubbard is one of at least 10 Americans behind bars in Russia, nearly two months after a prisoner swap on Aug. 1 between Moscow and the West freed three Americans and dozens of others.
Separately, on Monday a court in Voronezh, south of Moscow, sentenced U.S. citizen and ex-marine Robert Gilman to seven years and one month in prison for assaulting a prison official and a state investigator while serving time for an earlier assault conviction.