Robert Gilman, a 32-year-old teacher and Massachusetts resident who has spent more than four years in Russian custody, has been in a dissociative stupor for 47 days, connected to a feeding tube and handcuffed to a hospital bed. His family and advocates say he is gravely ill and at risk of dying, with his sister saying she is more afraid for him now than at any point since his ordeal began.
Gilman was reported by his family to have a high fever and high blood pressure as of August 4, according to the Baltimore Sun. His sister, Lexie Hudson, said she worries she may never see her brother again if Russia does not release him. “He could die,” Hudson said, according to the same report. Gilman has been held in a civilian hospital since early July, moved there from a Voronezh penal colony where he had been serving his sentence, according to Eric Lebson.
A Medical Crisis With No Independent Oversight
The World Health Organization defines a dissociative stupor as a profound diminution or complete absence of voluntary movement and normal responsiveness to external stimuli like light, noise, and touch, while normal muscle tone and breathing remain intact — a clinical picture that explains why Gilman has been medically unable to communicate or attend court hearings for weeks. Gilman's lawyer, Irina Brazhnikova, told Interfax that he is being held in the psychiatric ward of a civilian hospital. Brazhnikova has filed complaints with the local prosecutor's office, the local federal penitentiary service branch, and the prison hospital itself, but defense lawyers have not been able to visit him, she said.
Since his transfer to the hospital, Russian authorities have denied access to both U.S. consular officials and his defense attorney, and have blocked his mother despite her obtaining a court order allowing a visit, according to Fox News. Human rights advocacy groups reported in August that before falling into the stupor, Gilman was subjected to forced injections of mind-altering psychotropic drugs and severe physical torture while held in the Voronezh penal colony, per the Kyiv Post. His family has separately reported that he was subjected to forced drugging, provocations, and torture in prison.
From a Sick Passenger to a 10-Year Sentence
Gilman's ordeal traces back to January 2022, when he fell ill on a train from Sochi to Moscow. According to his family's account, police allegedly tried to restrain him as he became violently ill, and his leg brushed against an officer. Documents from the office of Sen. Edward Markey indicate the officer suffered no injury and originally requested that the charges be dropped. Gilman was nonetheless convicted of beating a police officer after being removed from the train for causing a disturbance, and received a three-and-a-half-year sentence in 2022. Kommersant reported that Gilman pleaded guilty to the charges.
What followed was a cycle of escalating internal charges. Gilman was later convicted of attacking a prison inspector during a cell check, of beating an investigator, and of assaulting a guard, with his family reporting that a series of vague and escalating charges were lodged against him over time. In October 2024, he was sentenced to eight years and one month; by 2025, after being found guilty of assaulting prison guards, his sentence had grown to 10 years. During a December 2025 court hearing, Gilman explained that he wanted to remain in his current prison and had deliberately provoked disciplinary action to avoid being transferred to another penitentiary, per Kommersant. He apologized to the guards he was charged with assaulting, according to the same outlet.
Washington Presses Moscow as the Clock Runs Out
The case has drawn cabinet-level attention in Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised Gilman's release directly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a bilateral meeting in Manila in late July, according to Reuters. The U.S. government has requested Gilman's release on humanitarian grounds and has raised his case repeatedly with the Russian government, and says it will continue to track it closely. The State Department has said it is deeply concerned about Gilman's health and continued detention. Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication, per the Baltimore Sun.
Senator Markey said urgent action is needed to release Gilman for medical care in the United States, and he has called on Russia and the United States to work together to secure his release. Gilman's family submitted an application in March 2023 to have him officially designated as wrongfully detained under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, but as of early 2025 the State Department had not made a formal determination, according to documents from Markey's office. Gilman was also among several Americans excluded from the historic 24-person U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange in August 2024, which freed former Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.
Part of a Larger Pattern of Detained Americans
Gilman is one of at least eight Americans who remain in Russian custody, a broader population that, per CBS News, includes former military personnel such as ex-paratrooper Michael Travis Leake and former staff sergeant Gordon Black. The State Department maintains a Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory for Russia, explicitly warning that American citizens face high risks of wrongful detention and false charges, with no guarantee of release even when Washington intervenes. For Gilman's family, that warning has become a lived reality stretching more than four years, with no clear end in sight as his condition continues to deteriorate in a hospital bed thousands of miles from home.
