Two Britons captured by Moscow’s forces in Ukraine have appeared in court on charges that carry a possible death penalty.
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Aiden Aslin, 28, from Nottinghamshire, and Shaun Pinner, 48, from Bedfordshire, are being held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, a breakaway region in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian rebels, said Sky News.
The two men were shown in a courtroom cage reserved for defendants in a video released on pro-Russian social media channels yesterday.
How did they come to be in Ukraine?
Pinner has lived in the country since 2018 and has a Ukrainian wife. In April he said that he had been captured while defending Mariupol, his adopted city. His family stressed at the time that he was “not a volunteer nor a mercenary, but officially serving with the Ukrainian army”.
He had previously told Sky News that he was on his fourth tour of duty in Ukraine after serving in the British Army for nine years.
Aslin, a former care home worker who has a Ukrainian fiancée, joined Ukraine’s armed forces as a marine in 2018 and has applied for citizenship.
Death penalty
The BBC said the two men are accused of being mercenaries but Aslin and Pinner insist they should be treated as prisoners of war. Prosecutors said they were charged with four separate offences: committing a crime as part of a criminal group; forcible seizure of power or forcible retention of power; being a mercenary; and the promotion of training in terrorist activities.
It is feared the court could pass the death penalty if it convicts them. However, the court is not recognised internationally because it is held in the breakaway state, set up by Russian separatists in 2014, which Russia is the only member of the UN to recognise.
‘Nuremberg 2.0’
According to Russia’s Interfax news agency, the president of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, has said the men will be charged in the region’s supreme court.
State media in Russia has accused the West of sending mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, so a high-profile trial of foreign fighters may prove to be a “valuable propaganda tool”, said The Telegraph.
Russian officials have threatened to hold military tribunals they have called “Nuremberg 2.0”, reported The Guardian. Commentators believe the trials may be used to put pressure on the West and to prompt prisoner exchanges for Russian soldiers captured and tried in Ukraine.
The families of both men have asked the British government to intervene. Asked about the case on LBC yesterday, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said that although he did not know “all the details, of course we would expect the laws of armed conflict to be respected, and we will make sure that we will make all the representations”.
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