A former Ukrainian prisoner of war, who was a cellmate of an American detained in Russia, has told of the abuse they both suffered behind bars, Agence France-Presse reported, BTA reported.
Torture, humiliation, hunger – these are the words Ukrainian serviceman Igor Shishko uses to describe the two years he spent in a Russian prison. He says he could use the same words to describe the time behind bars of American Stephen Hubbard. Hubbard, 72, was sentenced earlier this month in Moscow on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.
Captured by the Russian military in 2022, Hubbard was sentenced to 6 years and 10 months in prison on October 7, 2024, after a closed-door, fast-track trial. The United States said it had limited information about Hubbard's case because of Moscow's lack of cooperation on the matter. Russia revealed just 10 days before the verdict was announced, on September 27, that it had been holding the American behind bars for two and a half years. He appeared in court looking emaciated and pale, and had difficulty moving.
Igor Shishko was detained by Russian forces in May 2022 and then released in May 2024 in a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. In August, Shishko met an Agence France-Presse journalist. The meeting took place at a time when Shishko was being treated for injuries sustained in captivity. He told the journalist that at one point during his time behind bars, he was in the same cell as an elderly American.
Then, in two interviews with the Agence France-Presse journalist, given in September and October, Igor Shishko described the relationship he had with the American Stephen Hubbard in prison. Agence France-Presse also asked questions to the Russian authorities, but they never answered and therefore did not confirm whether Shishko and Hubbard were cellmates.
According to Shishko, he and the American were in prison in Novozybkov, in the Bryansk region, from September 2022 to May 2023. Sometimes they were held in two adjacent cells there. Then until the spring of 2024 The two were in penal colony number 7 in Pakino, where they shared a cell at one point.
Before September 2022, Igor Shishko was held in a prison in Stary Oskol, Belgorod region. He told AFP that he thought Hubbard was there too, although they had never met. The presence of a foreigner among Ukrainian prisoners of war is unusual, AFP noted. "It's not very clear how he did there," said Shishko, 41, who spent 801 days as a prisoner of war.
According to him, the American was subjected to the same torture as his Ukrainian comrades-in-arms – they were beaten, humiliated, and starved by guards, according to the Ukrainian soldier, who also said he witnessed Hubbard's abuse and that he himself had gone through it.
"They beat us all the time, every single one of us. They hit him with sticks, batons, kicked him. They attacked him with dogs, made him run, didn't feed him, made him crawl along the corridors", the Ukrainian says. Guards at Novozybkov deliberately hit the prisoners' genitals, Shyshko adds, and according to him, forced the prisoners, including Hubbard, to simulate sexual acts with each other in order to humiliate them.
Shyshko also says that the seventy-year-old American, with whom he communicated in broken English, told him that he had been tortured with electric shocks. These abuses were committed while he was being interrogated, at which Shyshko was not present. In telling this, the Ukrainian showed the journalist the scars on his hands and said that he had partially lost his hearing due to the blows.
According to the official version presented by the Russian authorities during the trial, Hubbard was detained on April 2, 2022, during the occupation of Izyum, in northeastern Ukraine. He had been living there since 2014 with his Ukrainian girlfriend.
According to the Russian prosecution, Stephen Hubbard joined a battalion of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense at the beginning of the Russian invasion and received at least $ 1,000 a month. Asked by Agence France-Presse, the Ukrainian authorities said they had no information that the American was part of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense.
According to Russian media, Hubbard pleaded guilty during the trial. According to Igor Shishko, the elderly American was an ordinary citizen who was captured by Russian soldiers at a checkpoint in Izyum. In prison, they mistreated him because of his age and because he was an American. Shishko says that Stephen Hubbard was also tortured by a doctor known by the nickname "Doctor Death" for his cruelty. According to Shishko, Hubbard will not be able to last long, mentally and physically, as he has already been between life and death while the two were cellmates.