Fellow prisoners describe beatings of freed American Stephen Hubbard
Ukrainians held alongside Stephen Hubbard have said they witnessed him being beaten and humiliated by Russian guards, the BBC reports. Shyshko said he witnessed and heard Hubbard being beaten by prison guards and electrocuted with a stun gun.
Shyshko, a captured Ukrainian soldier, alleges Hubbard was subjected to sexual humiliation and abuse for the entertainment of prison staff. Accounts from the two former Ukrainian prisoners corroborate statements made by Hubbard's family that he was tortured in prison.
The 74-year-old was released by the Kremlin after four-and-a-half years, on the day US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg to discuss the war in Ukraine.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
Two prisoners' accounts lining up with the family's statements is the kind of corroboration that gives a torture allegation weight.
Weight for the record, maybe. For politics, the release coming on the day Witkoff met Putin is suggestive without proving a bargain.