MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Monday sentenced a 72-year-old American in a closed trial to nearly seven years in prison for allegedly fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.
Prosecutors said Stephen Hubbard signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and he fought alongside them until being captured two months later.
He was sentenced to six years and 10 months in a general-security prison. Prosecutors had called for a sentence of seven years in a maximum-security prison.
Hubbard, from the state of Michigan, is the first American known to have been convicted on charges of fighting as a mercenary in the Ukrainian conflict.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that it had limited information about the case as Russia has refused to grant consular access.
“We’re disappointed, as we often are, when they refuse to grant consular access," Miller told reporters in Washington. "They have an obligation to provide it and we’re going to continue to press for it. We’re looking at the case very closely and considering our next steps.”
The charges against Hubbard carried a potential sentence of 15 years, but prosecutors asked that his age be taken into account along with his admission of guilt, Russian news reports said.
Arrests of Americans have become increasingly common in Russia in recent years. Concern has risen that Russia could be targeting U.S. nationals for arrest to use later as bargaining chips in talks to bring back Russians convicted of crimes in the U.S. and Europe.
Also on Monday, a court in the city of Voronezh sentenced American Robert Gilman to seven years and one month for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers while serving a sentence for another assault.
According to Russian news reports, Gilman was arrested in 2022 for causing a disturbance while intoxicated on a passenger train and then assaulted a police officer while in custody. He is serving a 3½-year sentence on that charge.
Last year, he assaulted a prison inspector during a cell check, then hit an official of the Investigative Committee, resulting in the new sentence, state news agency RIA-Novosti said.
The U.S. and Russia in August completed their largest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, a deal involving 24 people, many months of negotiations and concessions from other European countries, which released Russians in their custody as part of the exchange. Several U.S. citizens remain behind bars in Russia following the swap.
In this photo released by the Moscow City Court Press Service, Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine against Russia sits in a glass cage during a court session in the Moscow City court in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (Moscow City Court Press Service via AP)
In this photo released by the Moscow City Court Press Service, Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine against Russia stands in a glass cage during a court session in the Moscow City court in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (Moscow City Court Press Service via AP)
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Republican Don Bacon has been elected to a fifth House term representing Nebraska’s Omaha-based 2nd District, following the latest vote results in the tight race released nearly three days after the polls closed.
Bacon fended off a strong challenge from Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas in a rematch of their 2022 race to represent the Omaha area in Congress.
Bacon's victory is the latest race decided in favor of Republicans, who have projected confidence that they will keep control of the U.S. House, while Democrats continued to hold onto hope for a path toward the majority and sought assurances that every vote will be counted.
Bacon held a news conference a day after the election declaring victory and promising to meet the needs of both Republican and Democratic voters, noting the district is nearly evenly split politically.
“We couldn't have done this without split-ticket voters; we would have lost,” Bacon said Wednesday. “I recognize that.”
But Vargas declined to concede the tight race, with around 15,000 ballots left to be counted in Douglas County, where there are more registered Democrats than Republicans. Late Friday afternoon, the Douglas County Election Commission had counted more than 9,000 of the outstanding ballots, with the results slightly favoring Vargas, but not enough to make up his nearly 3 percentage-point deficit to Bacon recorded on Election Day.
Vargas had hoped to ride a wave of support for the Democratic presidential ticket that siphoned off a lone electoral vote tied to the district. But the district's support for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz — a Nebraska native — failed to translate into a win for Vargas.
Nebraska is one of two states — the other is Maine — that allows its Electoral College votes to be split. In Nebraska, the electoral votes tied to the state's three congressional districts go to the winner of the popular vote in each district. Nebraska’s 2nd District twice previously awarded its vote to Democratic presidential candidates — to Barack Obama in 2008 and to Joe Biden in 2020, and did so again Tuesday by backing Kamala Harris. Former President Donald Trump took the state’s other four electoral votes.
Mindful of the district's moderate makeup, both Vargas and Bacon sought to distance themselves from their parties’ partisan fringes in the run-up to the election and to woo the district’s sizeable independent and third-party voters. The district has leaned more to the left in the last two decades, despite Republican efforts to redraw its boundaries to favor their party.
Bacon touted his bipartisan credentials in his political ads, citing his willingness to buck his party to support measures such as the Biden administration’s popular 2021 infrastructure investment bill. But he also was careful to walk a fine line in the swing district, often turning to social media to tout his conservative stances — such as unwavering support for Israel in its war with Hamas and defending his vote against a bipartisan border security bill.
Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse said Thursday that his office had been busy in the aftermath of Election Day processing nearly 6,800 early ballots turned into his office or left in ballot drop boxes late Monday and on Election Day, as well as working through about 2,600 ballots that could not be read by vote-counting machines.
The reasons a ballot cannot be machine-read vary, Kruse said.
“It could be because somebody used a purple ink instead of blue or black. It could be because somebody put a checkmark instead of filling in the oval,” he said. “Maybe they spilled coffee on it and returned it rather than getting new pages.”
Kruse expected to finish counting the remainder of the ballots — including more than 5,500 provisional ballots — by end of day on Nov. 18, he said. The commission will certify the vote on Nov. 21.
Republican Don Bacon wins fifth term to US House representing Nebraska's Omaha-based district
State Sen. Tony Vargas speaks to supporters in Omaha, Neb., on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Megan Nielsen/Omaha World-Herald via AP)
Republican Don Bacon wins fifth term to US House representing Nebraska's Omaha-based district