Stephen Hubbard, a 72-year-old U.S. citizen, has pleaded guilty in a Moscow court to charges of mercenary activity, Russian state-run media reported, saying he admitted during a hearing that he had received money to fight for Ukraine to help repel invading Russian armed forces.
"Yes, I agree with the indictment," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Hubbard as saying in the courtroom during the hearing on September 30.
Prosecutors have alleged that Hubbard signed a contract with a Ukrainian territorial defense unit in the town of Izyum as Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The prosecution said Hubbard agreed to fight for Ukraine for $1,000 a month and allegedly received training, weapons, and ammunition.
Hubbard was detained by Russian soldiers on April 2, 2022.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has not commented on the situation due to what it called privacy restrictions.
Last week, the same court placed Hubbard, a native of Michigan, in pretrial detention until at least March 26, 2025.
State media reported earlier that Hubbard moved to the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine in 2014, where he lived with a local woman who later left him.
SEE ALSO: 'They Remain In Torturous Conditions': The Prisoners Left Behind In Russia After Historic ExchangeHubbard's previous pretrial restrictions remain unknown as there were no reports or official statements about his arrest or how he ended up in Moscow.
In late May 2022, three months after Russia launched its ongoing full-scale aggression against Ukraine, Telegram channels and media outlets close to the Russian government published a video of a man claiming to be Stephen James Hubbard, who said then that he and his partner had moved to the town of Izyum in the Kharkiv region, where he witnessed Ukrainian armed forces "shelling Izyum for propaganda purposes and to create panic among local residents."
It was not clear in what circumstances and where the video was taken, but a woman with the Facebook profile of Trisha Hubbard Fox said in a May 27 post that her brother, Stephen James Hubbard, was "kidnapped in Ukraine nearly three years ago" and that there were two videos of him bound and being beaten by "Russian Chechen rebel soldiers."
Moscow has been accused of targeting U.S. citizens by detaining them on trumped-up charges to later use as bargaining chips in talks to bring back Russians convicted of crimes in the United States and other Western nations.
Several U.S. citizens remain behind bars in Russia after a prisoner swap on August 1 involving 16 people that Moscow agreed to free in exchange for eight Russians convicted of crimes and serving prison terms in the United States and Europe.
U.S. citizens RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan were among those released by Russia.