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.
Article doesn’t say, but I’m assuming they captured him in Ukraine. In which case Russia took someone from a foreign territory they were at war with (they’ve done this so much already that we know it happens) as a prisoner of war. And then sentenced him in one of their internal kangaroo courts.
I’m not a lawyer, but it sounds like they broke a plethora of Geneva Convention provisions. (Again, something we know Russia does a lot.)
Nitpick: From Russia’s point of view Ukraine isn’t a foreign territory, this is a civil war.