Tyler Jacob, American Captured in Ukraine: Russians Thought I Was '007'

An American man who was captured and held by Russian forces in Ukraine has said Russian authorities acted as if they believed he was "007" during his detention.

Tyler Jacob, a 28-year-old who had been teaching English in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, told CNN's Don Lemon on Tuesday that the Russians believe in the "myth" of fictional British spy James Bond and suspected Jacob was using English teaching as a cover story.

Jacob was taken off a bus by Russian soldiers in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and was detained at a jail in the city of Simferopol where he was questioned. His phone, laptop and tablet were also searched.

Lemon spoke to Jacob and his mother, Tina Hauser, on Tuesday night and asked him about his experience and Russian suspicions that he was a spy.

"They thought that you might be a spy," Lemon said. "Did you have to prove to them that you weren't a spy?"

"Yeah, they went through all—they took my laptop, my phone and my tablet, copied all the hard drives and then sifted through everything that I had," Jacob said.

"The Russians believe in this myth that 007—the legend—his cover story is being an English teacher," Jacob went on. "So they thought that I was like the legend."

His mother laughed at the idea that he was similar to the fictional spy.

Earlier in the interview, Jacob explained that he had been stopped at a checkpoint and was held for 10 days. He told Lemon he had been sitting at a checkpoint in the town of Armyansk for about seven or eight hours when Russian forces tried to make him sign a "protocol."

"They were trying to force me without telling me anything about it," Jacob said, explaining that he had been put in a jail cell in Armyansk by 6 a.m. the following morning and was taken to court later that day and charged with not producing his passport.

Jacob also said he had been treated well by his captors and that two of the three captains in the jail at Simferopol spoke to him in English.

"As much as I'd like to say Russians are bad people for invading a sovereign country, these people were some of the nicest people I've met," Jacob said.

He said that one of the captains "would wink at me when I'd get pulled to go get questioned and he would make sure that I knew that things were going well."

Jacob had moved to Kherson in November 2021 to be with his girlfriend, whom he subsequently married in January. After the city fell to Russian forces, Jacob made the decision to leave his wife and stepdaughter and boarded a bus taking foreigners to Turkey. He was captured and detained during the journey.

Newsweek has asked the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.