<\/div>\n

<\/gu-island><\/figure>\n

In a public Facebook group, Fox earlier said that her brother had been \u201ckidnapped up in the Ukraine\u201d nearly three years ago.<\/p>\n

Hubbard has reportedly spent decades working abroad as an English teacher, including in Japan, Cyprus and Ukraine, where he was living at the time of Moscow\u2019s invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the US embassy in Moscow said last week that it was aware of the detention of an American citizen, but declined further comment.<\/p>\n

Hubbard is one of at least a dozen Americans behind bars in Russia. Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between the two countries sink to cold war-era lows. Washington has previously accused Moscow of using US citizens as bargaining chips for political leverage.<\/p>\n

Hubbard is the first known US citizen to be tried in Russia on mercenary charges in relation to the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In June 2022, two American men were captured by Russian-backed separatist forces in Donbas while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces during a battle north of Kharkiv. The men were later released along with five British citizens as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine that was brokered by Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Source: www.theguardian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A US citizen has pleaded guilty in a Moscow court to charges of fighting for Ukraine, marking the first known instance of an American being tried as a mercenary in Russia. Russian state media reported that Stephen James Hubbard, 72, of Michigan, had admitted he had received money to fight for Ukraine against Russia. \u201cYes,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"yoast_head":"\n