By Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Reuters) – A former U.S. Marine jailed in Russia since 2022 and allegedly tortured and injected with mind-altering drugs, slipped into a stupor in June and may be close to death, according to two hostage advocacy groups and his sister.
The White House and the State Department have urged Moscow to release Robert Gilman, 32, so he can receive urgent medical treatment in the U.S., said Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer of Global Reach, an advocacy group representing his family. Gilman is being fed through a tube, he said.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters they had learned through State Department contacts that Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised the case with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Manila on July 23.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said they did not know Lavrov’s response.
Gilman is one of at least 10 Americans known to be imprisoned in Russia. His death would complicate Washington’s ties with Moscow, already strained by the Iran and Ukraine wars and other issues.
“I am more afraid for my brother than I have been since this horrible nightmare started,” Lexie Hudson, Gilman’s sister, said in a statement. “I’m worried that I may never see him again if the Russians don’t release him. I’m worried that he could die.”
A senior Trump administration official, who was also granted anonymity, said the administration “is closely tracking Mr. Gilman’s case and has made repeated, concerted outreach to the Russians calling for his return to the United States.”
“We are deeply concerned about Robert Gilman’s health and continued detention,” the State Department said in a statement.
The Russian embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
MOTHER BARRED FROM VISITING
The Russian hospital has barred Gilman’s mother from visiting him even though she has a judicial order that she be permitted to see her son, Lebson said.
U.S. consular officials were occasionally allowed to visit Gilman in prison, but neither they nor his Russian lawyer have been permitted into the hospital, he added.
Gilman was being held in a prison in Voronezh, about 340 miles (547 kilometers) south of Moscow. He was moved in late June from the prison hospital to the psychiatric ward of a civilian emergency hospital in a catatonic-like state assessed as a “dissociative stupor,” said Lebson.
The World Health Organization’s ICD-10, an internationally used diagnostic classification system, describes a dissociative stupor as “a profound diminution or absence of voluntary movement and normal responsiveness to external stimuli.”
Gilman has been unable to communicate, must receive food and fluids through a tube and his eyes remain shut, Lebson said. The condition has prevented him from attending court hearings.
“It doesn’t seem like he’s getting the care he needs, and we are very concerned for his life and safety,” said Elizabeth Richards, director of hostage advocacy and research at the Foley Foundation, a group that has tracked the case.
A Russian newspaper on July 9 reported Gilman had been moved to a hospital in Voronezh, and quoted his lawyer as saying it was too early for a diagnosis.
FORMER MARINE
Gilman, who served in the U.S. Marines from August 2019 until August 2020, was traveling by train when he was arrested on January 17, 2022, in Voronezh, Lebson said.
He was detained for allegedly kicking a police officer while drunk, according to Russian state media.
However, his father, Vladimir Gilman, who immigrated to Massachusetts from Russia, wrote in an October 11, 2024, Boston Globe op-ed that the charges were false.
His son, he said, had fallen ill when the incident occurred and accidentally kicked the officer. The officer was uninjured, dropped the charges, and did not present evidence in Robert Gilman’s trial, he wrote.
Robert Gilman was sentenced to 4-1/2 years in jail.
Vladimir Gilman wrote that the family had asked the State Department in March 2023 to designate his son as wrongfully detained, a designation that would make winning his release a top U.S. government priority.
Reuters could not learn why the State Department has not made that designation. Lebson said Rubio has not designated any American being held in Russia since Trump began his second term.
Russian state media reported that Robert Gilman’s sentence was extended in 2024 to 10 years for allegedly assaulting prison staff.
Lebson and Richards denied that allegation, saying that Robert Gilman was held in extremely harsh conditions, tortured and injected with mind-altering drugs by guards, treatment that led to his transfer to the civilian hospital.
“We are seriously worried that we could see another situation like Otto Warmbier,” Lebson said.
He was referring to a U.S. college student who was comatose when he was freed in June 2017 by North Korea after 17 months in prison. Warmbier died the same month in a U.S. hospital from severe brain damage of an unknown cause without regaining consciousness.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Editing by Don Durfee and Rod Nickel)
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