[TITLE>A Sobbing Call for Justice: a Russian Detainee’s Mother Fights for Her Son After Alleged Mistreatment in Prison
A former U.S. Marine is on the brink of losing his life while in Russian custody, says his family and advocacy group, having been allegedly mistreated and kept in grave condition within a civilian hospital.
Robert Gilman, 32, has been held since 2022, following a conviction by a court in Voronezh, Russia, on assaulting a police officer and was sentenced to four and a half years in a penal colony. This sentence was prolonged to 10 years last year after Russian authorities claimed Mr. Gilman had attacked prison staff and an investigator, according to Russian news sources.
Mr Gilman’s family and the Global Reach non-profit group, which represents them, have claimed that the Russian authorities are holding him for political motives because he is American.
Since June, Robert Gilman has been in a ‘dissociative stupor’, a medical condition where a patient is unresponsive without an obvious physical cause, said Eric Lebson, the chief strategy officer for Global Reach, who has kept in touch with Mr Gilman’s family. Mr Gilman’s condition was first made known by Reuters on Thursday.
Mr Gilman has been fed through a tube, suffers from a high fever and has high blood pressure, said Mr Lebson in a Friday interview.
“Gilman is now in a life-or-death situation,” he said.
Robert Gilman’s mother, Nina Gilman, flew to Russia from her home in Massachusetts to see him, only to be denied entry by hospital officials.
“This is very concerning for us,” Mr. Lebson said.
Mr Gilman’s family has accused him of being force-fed drugs, deprived of food and sleep, and provoked into altercations with guards while in custody to add more charges, according to Mr Lebson. In July, a Russian news agency reported that Mr Gilman was moved to a hospital due to his “worsening health.”
A lawyer for Mr Gilman could not be contacted on Friday, and a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
The State Department said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned about Robert Gilman’s health and continued detention in Russia.” The government had raised his case repeatedly with the Russian government, the statement said, requesting Mr. Gilman’s release on humanitarian grounds.
“I am more afraid for my brother than I have been since this horrible nightmare started,” Lexie Hudson, Mr. Gilman’s sister, said in a statement provided by Global Reach. “I’m worried that I may never see him again if the Russians don’t release him. I’m worried that he could die.”
She explained that the last time she had spoken to her brother was before his arrest. “We sometimes can send him letters and get replies, but I want him to hear my voice so he knows in his heart that he is not forgotten and we are fighting for him every single day,” she added.
Mr Gilman’s parents moved from Russia to Dracut, Mass., his father, Vladimir Gilman, wrote in a 2024 Boston Globe article. Robert Gilman was born in Poland and raised in Massachusetts, and served in the U.S. Marines. He had been traveling to Moldova in early 2022 to explore a teaching opportunity when he fell ill while transiting through Russia, his father wrote.
Mr. Gilman decided to recuperate in Russia and visit an aunt who lived there, but while on a train, his father wrote, he fell ill and was taken to a local police station, where he accidentally kicked a police officer. “This event would normally result in a fine or a suspended sentence, if anything,” Mr. Gilman’s father wrote in the 2024 article. “But Robert was singled out because he is an American.”
The Foley Foundation, a non-profit organization that advocates for American hostages abroad, has named Mr. Gilman as one of at least seven American citizens they consider wrongfully detained in Russia. Only one person in this group, Stephen Hubbard, has been designated as “wrongfully detained” by the State Department.
Mr Gilman’s family requested that the State Department designate him as a wrongful detainee in 2023, which would allow the U.S. government to negotiate for Mr. Gilman’s freedom, his sister said. This request was denied at the time, and no detainee has received this designation during this Trump administration.
During an April hearing in Voronezh, Mr. Gilman told a judge that he wanted to fight for Russia in the war in Ukraine, according to a Russian news agency. But Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, in a letter to the department immediately after, said that Russian officials had told Robert Gilman that his government had forgotten about him and the only way to secure his freedom was to serve in the Russian Army in Ukraine.
“He needs to come home and needs proper medical care,” said Elizabeth Richards, the director of hostage advocacy and research at the Foley Foundation. “It is a terrible situation for everyone if Robert dies. If he does not come soon, that is our biggest concern.”
In recent years, several American citizens who have been designated by the State Department as wrongful detainees in Russia have been released after negotiations between Washington and Moscow. The most notable was a meticulously brokered prisoner swap in Ankara, Turkey, in 2024, in which 15 people jailed by Russia, including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and one person in Belarus were freed in exchange for eight people held in Western countries.
On Thursday, Senator Markey expressed his fear that Mr Gilman’s condition could become permanent, or that he could die in Russian custody. He urged both the Russian and U.S. governments to find a solution.
Paul Sonne and Remy Tumin contributed to this report.
