Three foreigners fighting on Ukraine’s behalf have been sentenced to death by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
A court in the Russian-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic found two British citizens and a Moroccan civilian guilty of working to overthrow the government, a death penalty offense in the territory, according to the Associated Press.
The men, identified by Russian state media as Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner, and Saaudun Brahim, have a month to appeal the ruling before facing a firing squad. The first two surrendered to Russian troops in mid-April in Mariupol, while Brahim did so a month earlier in the city of Volnovakha.
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Russians claimed that the men were “mercenaries,” and thus not entitled to usual prisoner of war protections, though Aslin’s and Pinner’s families said they were “long-serving members of the Ukrainian military” and had lived there since 2018.
Another British national, Andrew Hill, who fought with the Ukrainians before being captured by the Russians, is currently awaiting trial.
Simultaneously, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that Severodonetsk “remains the epicenter” of Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine and that the “fate” of the Donbas region “is being decided there.” He said Russia has suffered “significant losses” in the battle for Severodonetsk, but the Russian military said the same thing about them.
“Ninety percent” of the Luhansk region is controlled by Russian forces, according to Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai.
The Ukrainians have also begun investigating and charging Russian military members with alleged war crimes. The prosecutor general’s office has opened more than 15,000 cases and has already gotten three convictions.
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Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of an unarmed 62-year-old Ukrainian man in late February in a village in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine, while Oleksandr Bobykin and Oleksandr Ivanov were given an 11-and-a-half-year sentence after pleading guilty to firing rockets from Russia’s Belgorod region toward Ukraine’s Kharkiv at the start of the war.
