Stephen James Habard left the United States several decades ago, first for Japan, then Cyprus and finally Ukraine. He didn’t really like the government.
He was a wandering, fell into a small town in Michigan, and traveled to the world before ending in the Eastern Ukrainian town of Ezim, when the Russians attacked February 24, 2022.
Now Mr Habard, a retired English teacher who turned 73 on Thursday, has become an unexpected infant in the international war. Immediately after being attacked, the Russians arrested him and accused him of fighting for Ukraine. He transferred him to at least five different Russian detention centers before the trial charged with being a tenant.
In October, a Moscow court sentenced him and sentenced him to nearly seven years in the Pennastal Colony.
His case is mostly under the radar. But last month, the State Department said that Mr Habard was “wrongly detained” – which raised his case and indicated that the United States believes the allegations are fabricated.
A spokesman for the State Department said he should never be taken captive and he should not be transferred to the Russian jail.
Mr Habard’s sister and three former Ukrainian prisoners fought with the Mr Habard conflict. Former prisoners say they believe they will die if they are not free. He says he suffered the same harassment he did: repeatedly beaten, terrorized by dogs, every day, forced to stand every day, even for more than a month. Naked also took away.
“They defeated our ankle and forced us to tear into the process, to tear it into the process.” “Many men were injured, some permanently. Things were beyond inhumane.
Mr Sheshko added, “The same thing happened to Stephen, but it was even worse for her because she’s an American.” “They screamed in the hallway and storms: ‘We know you are American. You are here!”
The United States has accused Russia of promoting and inventing criminal accusations against the Americans so that their business can be used for the Russians or used as international bargaining chips. After a major prisoner exchange in August, Mr Habard is one of the 13 Americans who are now in Russian prisons. Mr. Habard is the oldest. He is also the only American who was imprisoned in Russia after being taken from Ukraine.
In Russia, only one and only American have been publicly detained in public.
Mr Habard’s family could not find his prison. The Russian judge removed the file of his case, even the basic information like his lawyer’s name was removed from the public theory. Even the New York Times could not find it.
The State Department spokesman said that the US Embassy in Moscow did not see Mr Habrd, yet it was the responsibility of providing Russia’s access. The embassy said he would not comment on his issue because of confidentiality concerns.
Mr Sheshko said he tried to ask the US Embassy in Kiev for help, but he could not pass through the front door.
“It’s really disturbing,” said Mr Habard’s only siblings, 71 -year -old Petroceia Habard Fox, and now he took everything even, even his glasses. “
A quiet life
Mr Habard has always been a lonely man. He liked his privacy. He didn’t like email and social media. He was suspicious of government agencies who are spying on internet posts and what the government has spent on taxes.
He and his sister have grown in a very small Michigan city in Big Rapids. His only mother sometimes abused them. Ms Habard Fox reminded that “we grew up at the end of the bill.”
As an adult, Mr. Habard was always looking: He enrolled in a Bible College in Tallasa, Okla, but it continued for only a year. He married Young at the age of 20.
Mr Habard enrolled in airspace, but after three years of active duty and two in the National Guard, mainly in Sacramento, he worked as an educational assistant with the local Veterans Affairs Department and at the nearest Business College Education His marriage was separated and Mr Habard’s wife won the custody of her three children.
Mr Habard arrived at Seattle, where he received a master’s degree in English and met the Japanese woman who became his second wife, Ms Habard Fox.
In the mid -1980s, the couple moved to Japan, where Mr Habard studied English and joined the East Orthodox Church. The couple had a son before divorce. After his son grew up, Mr Habard moved to Cyprus, where he had a son from his first marriage and where he fell in love with another woman, Anna. She was Ukrainian.
In 2014, they went to Ezem. When he needed money, he told his sister, he taught English online. He did not speak any Ukraine, no Russian language.
Ms Habard Fox said she last talked to her brother on Skype in September 2021, when she sat down to eat some porridge.
It is unclear whether the couples were separated or Anna was on leave. But when the Russians attacked in February 2022, Mr Habard was alone.
Hours later, the Russians occupied the Ezem. The next day, April 2, 2022, Mr Habard was detained, the RIA Novostati State News Agency later reported.
Things are funny. Russian officials said Mr Habard signed this February – the month he was 70 years old – for the regional regional defense unit to defend Ukraine and training, weapons, ammunition and $ in a month 1,000 received. He said he was arrested while manning Military checkpoints.
This was unlikely, Alona Harbin, a civil servant in Ezem, said. He said the regional defense unit has some weapons. No one was paid. He added, “There were no old men.”
Mr Sheshko reminded that Mr Habard said that he was detained at a checkpoint.
Mr Sheshko said, “He wanted to get out of there, but he couldn’t do that.”
‘He is every American’
Mr Habard’s first detention camp was five miles from the Russian border. Another prisoner of the war, Andrey Stratulat, said the Russians gave two English books to Mr Habrd: “The egg and I,” a young wife’s 1945 memory on a chicken farm, and “The Lolly bones”, about 2002 I am a young girl whose soul comes with her rape and murder. He read them again and again.
Mr Strategles, who spoke English, were put in June 2022 in Mr Habard’s tent.
“On that day, he said he started smiling,” Mr Stratrolt remembered 30.
Mr Stratullat said he spent 42 days together. Mr Habard talked about his life: a journey that he took to the Grand Valley. Its baptism at the Eastern Orthodox Church. His Japanese wife, Sami. His son, Hashi. His partner, Anna.
Throughout his imprisonment, Mr Stratolot will recite these names by himself: Hasashi. Sami. inna. When he was released, he wanted to tell someone about the American whom he met.
Mr Stratullat recalled, at the end of July 2022, Mr Habard was transferred.
A Ukrainian Special Forces officer caught with the hacker’s call sign met with Mr Habard at Sterey Oscaul Jail in Belgorod in early September, about 80 80 miles northeast of the concentration camp. After an investigation, which was more violent, the hacker said, he was taken to a cell with Mr Habard, who gave him water and prayed for it.
The 33 -year -old hacker said, “This is the first time a boy, an old man, an wise man, prayed for me,” whom the Times are identifying with their military call mark because they still fight Russia There are
The hacker said he met Mr Habard a month later in Nozibkov jail. For two months, they were kept in nearby cells. “I heard everything happening to him,” the hacker remembered, who was released in the spring last season.
The hacker said Mr Habard had difficulty in his kidneys, stomachs and rectal paths. He was bleeding. Russian guards defeated him and forced him to learn Russian words, Russian poets, Russian national anthem.
The hacker said, “Soldiers, guards and special forces looked at him as an archaeological.” “Because Stephen, he is American. She is an American spider. She is an American from Michigan. He is every American.
Since Russian officials have not revealed any information about Mr Habard, it is impossible to confirm the accounts of former prisoners. But they associated with each other and with other Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Mr Sheshko said that in 2023, Mr Habard was shifted from Moscow to a prison in Pakino, about 170 170 miles east, where he shared a cell with Mr Sheshko and 13 others.
The hacker and Mr. Sheshko said that there, the prisoners were questioned, were often subjected to violence, shocked, beaten and burned by lightning.
Mr Sheshko said that the Russians were all stripped and taken to a cold basement after they were found to be itching on the prisoners, where they were forced to walk barefoot in circles wearing only chapels for a month and a half. –
Mr Shesco said that the doctor told her that “the scabies in itching cannot be re -born in the cold, it will die with you.”
In lunch, water was often boiled with cabbage leaves. Dinner, the survivors of Russian prisoners, mixed together. Mr. Sheshko’s weight dropped from about 240 to 240 to 130 pounds.
“Stephen, though, he never gave,” said Mr Sheshko. “He kept telling us: ‘These people are not human. Do not miss hope. ‘He stood in front of them and encouraged us to stop.
One day, Mr Habard said he believes his sister is probably looking for it.
A prison sentence
Ms. Habard Fox worried about her brother when the war started. But she could not reach it. Finally he found out that the Russians had kept him: he saw an interview on Russian TV in which he Russian conversation points echoes – The prisoners of the war are often told what to say – and another video, which was briefly posted on the X, where the guards hit Mr Habrd with sandals.
He said he tried to talk to US officials, but it helped very little. And he wasn’t sure who to call.
In the mid -May 2024, Mr Habard disappeared from jail in Pakino and later appeared in a judicial proceedings in Moscow. During a hearing, the judge stopped the trial in front of the public, RIA Novosti reported that Mr Habard had proved to be a tenant by saying to the dock, “Yes, I am guilty of crime. I agree. “
In early October, Mr. Habard- Bent.Her hair and beard almost cute cut, her glasses were gone – she was sentenced to six years and 10 months in a prison colony.
Ms Habard Fox said he hoped that President Trump could deal with the Russians. Ms Habard Fox said, “She’s one, and she knows that she will not tolerate their nastyness.”
He said that seeing his brother beaten from the sandals, he reminds him of being a child in childhood. She plans to sell her home in Colorado and buy one in Oklahoma, so her brother can stay with her when she gets out.
“I love my house, but my brother has lost everything,” he said. “So I’m doing this. I’m going to provide him a house.
Hasaku Yuno supported Tokyo in reporting. Dis -Vank Panchuk, Yuri Shivala and Olyxandra Microscopian supported Sacramento in reporting from Kiev, Ukraine, and Sean Hubbler. Susan Baichi participated in the research.
