Former Marine Robert Gilman, Held in Russia Since 2022, Now Fed Through a Tube and Near Death, Family and Advocates Say

Robert Gilman, a former U.S. Marine from Massachusetts, has been locked in a Russian prison since January 2022. Now his family says he may be dying, and the Russian government won't even let his mother see him.

Gilman, 32, was moved in late June from a prison hospital in Voronezh to the psychiatric ward of a civilian emergency hospital after slipping into what doctors classified as a "dissociative stupor," according to Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer of the advocacy group Global Reach, speaking to Reuters and Fox News Digital. The World Health Organization's ICD-10 classification describes that condition as a profound loss of voluntary movement and responsiveness to stimuli.

For more than six weeks, Gilman has been unable to eat on his own. He's been fed through a tube, his eyes stay shut, and he can't communicate, according to Lebson. He's missed his own court hearings because of it.

Advocacy groups and Gilman's sister, Lexie Hudson, say he may have been tortured and injected with mind-altering drugs before falling into the stupor in June, Reuters reported. Those are allegations from the family's side, not findings from an independent medical or judicial investigation, and Russian authorities have not responded to the claims.

Gilman's mother has a judicial order allowing her to visit her son. Russian hospital staff aren't honoring it. She flew to Russia and still can't see him, Lebson said. U.S. consular officials had occasional access to Gilman while he was in prison, but neither they nor his own Russian lawyer have been let into the hospital since the transfer, according to Reuters.

"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, which has tracked the case.

"I am more afraid for my brother than I have been since this horrible nightmare started," Hudson said in a statement reported by Reuters. "I'm worried that I may never see him again if the Russians don't release him. I'm worried that he could die."

How Gilman ended up in a Russian prison

Gilman served in the Marine Corps before becoming an English teacher, according to the Daily Wire. He was passing through Moscow in November 2021 en route to a new teaching job in Moldova when he got sick and stayed to recover. During that time he says he discovered his luggage and passport had been tampered with, according to the advocacy site FreeRobertGilman.com, forcing him to get passport pages replaced at the U.S. Embassy.

On January 17, 2022, while heading back to Moscow for that embassy visit, Gilman became violently ill again. The advocacy group alleges Russian police, rather than getting him medical help, struck him. What followed was a train disturbance charge that snowballed into years of detention. A Voronezh court later added two more years to his sentence over an alleged attack on prison guards, bringing his total exposure to roughly 10 years, according to Fox News.

Washington's response, and the designation Gilman doesn't have

Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised Gilman's case directly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Manila on July 23, according to a source familiar with the matter cited by Reuters. That source said they don't know how Lavrov responded. The Russian embassy did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

"We are deeply concerned about Robert Gilman's health and continued detention," the State Department said in a statement. A senior Trump administration official told Reuters 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."

Gilman has not been designated "wrongfully detained" by the State Department, according to the Daily Wire. That designation unlocks additional diplomatic resources and lets the U.S. government fund a detainee's medical care and other needs. Americans freed in past prisoner swaps with Russia typically carried that label. Gilman doesn't have it, and the State Department hasn't publicly said why.

Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has pushed for urgent action, warning that Gilman's condition "could become permanent, or he could die in Russian custody" without it, and that his death "in a situation that will further complicate an already difficult relationship" between Washington and Moscow.

Gilman is one of at least 10 Americans known to be held in Russian custody. His case now sits alongside the broader freeze in U.S.-Russia relations, strained further by the wars in Ukraine and the standoff with Iran. Whether the wrongful-detention designation ever comes, and whether Moscow grants any kind of emergency medical release, remains unanswered as of this week.