Why two Britons were sentenced to death in Ukraine

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will speak with her Ukrainian counterpart about two Britons handed death sentences yesterday by a Russian proxy court in eastern Ukraine.

Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, who were accused of terrorism, face a firing squad after they were found guilty of “mercenary activities and committing actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic]”. The British government said the sentences breach the Geneva Convention.

Truss has described the verdict as a “sham judgment” and said it had “absolutely no legitimacy”, said The Guardian.

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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.

‘Nuremberg 2.0’

The BBC said that although the two men were accused of being mercenaries, Aslin and Pinner insisted they should be treated as prisoners of war.

The court which pronounced the death penalty 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.

State media in Russia has accused the West of sending mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, so the high-profile trial of foreign fighters may have been regarded as a “valuable propaganda tool”, said The Telegraph.

Russian officials had previously 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.

Following the sentencing, Metro described the two men as “Putin's pawns,” reporting that there were fears the men would become “bargaining chips”.

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”.