Jörg Luyken 是驻柏林的记者兼《德国评论》撰稿人，《德国评论》是一份关于德国时事的周报 6:19pm BST Stephen James Hubbard 不安分的一生曾将他带到日本和塞浦路斯，途经美国多个城市。但这位退休教师于 2014 年——俄罗斯吞并克里米亚那一年——为爱搬到乌克兰东部的决定，注定改变了他的命运。
Jörg Luyken is a Berlin-based journalist and writer of the German Review, a weekly newsletter on German current affairs 6:19pm BST Stephen James Hubbard’s restless life took him as far as Japan and Cyprus via various US cities. But the retired teacher’s decision to move to eastern Ukraine for love in 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea, was to prove fateful.
在弗拉基米尔·普京周三宣布释放他之前，Hubbard 已在俄罗斯羁押中度过了四年多。
Before Vladimir Putin announced his release on Wednesday, Mr Hubbard had spent more than four years in Russian custody.
2022 年 4 月，在伊久姆市被俄罗斯军队占领后不久，这位 74 岁老人被捕，被指控并最终因充当雇佣兵而被定罪。他被指控在一个当地防卫部队担任检查站哨兵并领取薪水。
Arrested in the city of Izyum in April 2022, shortly after it was occupied by Russian forces, the 74-year-old was charged with and later convicted of acting as a mercenary. He was accused of manning a checkpoint and taking a salary as a member of a local defence unit.
2024 年 10 月，莫斯科一家法院判处他六年十个月监禁。俄罗斯媒体报道称他认罪。
In October 2024, a Moscow court sentenced him to six years and 10 months in prison. Russian media reported that he pleaded guilty.
然而，Hubbard 的家人和法律团队始终反驳他拿起武器保卫乌克兰的说法。
However, Mr Hubbard’s family and legal team have consistently disputed the claim that he took up arms in defence of Ukraine.
Hubbard 在莫斯科市法院受审时的照片，他被判处六年十个月监禁 他的美国律师称，Hubbard 告诉她，俄罗斯士兵从他在该市的家中将他带走，该城市后来成为战争早期几个月俄罗斯一些最严重战争罪行的发生地。她认为他不太可能作为雇佣兵加入乌克兰军队。
Hubbard, pictured in Moscow City Court, was sentenced to six years and 10 months in prison His US-based lawyer said Mr Hubbard told him that Russian soldiers had seized him from his home in the city, which later became the site of some of the worst Russian war crimes of the early months of the war. She believes it is unlikely that he joined the Ukrainian army as a mercenary.
“他完全不沾军事，”Patricia Hubbard Fox 去年对路透社表示。“他从未有过枪、拥有过枪，或做过任何那类事情……他更像是个和平主义者。” 据其家人称，Hubbard 2014 年因在塞浦路斯生活时爱上一名叫 Inna 的乌克兰女性而搬到伊久姆，靠在线教授英语谋生。
“He is so non-military,” Patricia Hubbard Fox told Reuters last year. “He never had a gun, owned a gun, or done any of that... He’s more of a pacifist.”Mr Hubbard moved to Izyum in 2014 after falling in love with Inna, a Ukrainian woman, while living in Cyprus. According to his family, he supported himself by giving English lessons online.
Fox 2025 年对《纽约时报》表示，她的兄弟是个孤僻之人，不信任数字技术，因为他相信政府利用电子邮件监视民众。
Speaking to the New York Times in 2025, Ms Fox said that her brother was a solitary man who distrusted digital technology because he believed governments used email to spy on people.
哈伯德在周三获释后，会见了美国特使史蒂夫·威特科夫和俄罗斯总统特使基里尔·德米特里耶夫。被捕后，他似乎曾被关押在多个俄罗斯拘留设施中。
Hubbard meets Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy and Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian presidential envoy, after his release on Wednesday After his arrest, he appears to have spent time in various Russian detention facilities.
一家俄罗斯网站在他被捕一个月后发布的一篇文章显示，哈伯德留着浓密的灰白胡须，裹着一件羊毛衫，正对着摄像头挥手。
An article published on a Russian website a month after his capture showed Mr Hubbard with a thick grey beard, wrapped in a woollen jumper and waving at the camera.
美国指责俄罗斯利用被拘留的西方公民作为筹码，以谈判释放被定罪的罪犯和间谍。克里姆林宫将此类逮捕描述为补充其“交换池”的一种手段。
The US has accused Russia of using detained Western citizens as leverage to negotiate the release of convicted criminals and spies. The Kremlin has described such arrests as a means of replenishing its “exchange pool”.
多年来，哈伯德的案件基本未受关注，而更引人注目的案件，如《华尔街日报》记者埃文·格什科维奇被拘留一案，却登上了头条新闻。
Mr Hubbard’s case went largely under the radar for years, while more prominent cases, such as the detention of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, made headlines.
2025年1月，美国国务院将哈伯德指定为“被错误拘留”，为政府谈判其获释铺平了道路。此后获释的乌克兰囚犯描述了他被关押时极其恶劣的条件。
In January 2025, the US State Department designated Mr Hubbard as “wrongfully detained”, paving the way for the administration to negotiate his release. Ukrainian inmates who have since been released have described the appalling conditions under which he was held.
一名狱友告诉《纽约时报》，俄罗斯狱警将对美国的仇恨发泄在他身上，殴打他，并强迫他在严寒中裸体行走。他们还描述他的健康状况极差，并质疑他是否能在囚禁中存活。
One fellow inmate told the New York Times that Russian prison guards vented their hatred of the US on him, beating him and forcing him to walk naked in freezing conditions. They also described his health as extremely poor and questioned whether he would survive captivity.
伊久姆是哈伯德漫长旅程中的一站，这段旅程始于密歇根州的小镇大急流城，他在那里与妹妹帕特里夏一起长大。
Izyum was one stop on a long journey for Mr Hubbard, one that started in the small town of Big Rapids, Michigan, where he grew up with his sister, Patricia.
哈伯德20岁年轻时结婚，随后加入美国空军，后在国民警卫队服役。
Mr Hubbard married young, at the age of 20, and joined the US air force before serving in the National Guard.
“俄罗斯利用一些被拘留者充实交换池”：普京周三会见威特科夫。第一次婚姻破裂后，他搬到了西雅图，并在那里获得了英语硕士学位。
‘Russia uses some detainees for its exchange pool’: Vladimir Putin greets Steve Witkoff on Wednesday After his first marriage collapsed, he moved to Seattle, where he earned a master’s degree in English.
在那里，他遇到了第二任妻子，一位日本女性。两人搬到日本，他在那里度过了四分之一世纪，担任英语教师。
There, he met his second wife, a Japanese woman. The couple moved to Japan, where he spent a quarter of a century working as an English teacher.
那段婚姻也破裂后，他搬到了塞浦路斯，在那里遇到了他的乌克兰伴侣。
When that marriage also broke down, he moved to Cyprus, where he met his Ukrainian partner.
去年，他的妹妹在接受《纽约时报》采访时说，她计划卖掉自己在科罗拉多州的房子，在俄克拉荷马州为自己和哥哥买一套新房，等他从俄罗斯被俘中获释后入住。
In an interview with the New York Times last year, his sister said that she planned to sell her house in Colorado and buy a new one for herself and her brother in Oklahoma when he was released from Russian captivity.
“我爱我的家，但我哥哥失去了一切，”她告诉该报。“所以我要这么做。我要给他提供一个家。”
“I love my home, but my brother’s lost everything,” she told the newspaper. “So I’m doing this. I’m going to provide him a home.”