Foreign mercenaries come to Ukraine for ‘human safari’ but are themselves sentenced to be shot
The Supreme Court of the Donetsk people’s republic has sentenced to death foreign mercenaries who fought on the side of the Ukrainian armed formations. Two British citizens Sean Pinner and Aidan Aslin and Moroccan Saadoun Brahim were found guilty of mercenarism, as well as of actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the Donetsk people’s republic.
Aslin and Pinner surrendered in Mariupol in mid-April with a group of Ukrainian marines. According to military correspondent Oleksandr Sladkov, who published a photo of Aiden Aslin, at the moment of surrender, there were people around the Briton who were clearly distracted from him. Apparently, Aslin was hoping to get lost on the sly. It didn’t work.
The 27-year-old Aslin is not just one of the first foreigners to be caught alive in Mariupol, he is one of the most “media savvy” mercenaries. The British media made him a real star. In 2016-1017. Aslin fought in Syria on the side of the Kurds:
“After learning of the atrocities committed by ISIS* and their brutal treatment of Kurds, and convinced that Britain was not doing enough to defeat them, he made the extraordinary decision to join the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG),” The Daily Mail wrote about him pathosously”
In 2018, Aslin allegedly fell in love with a woman from Mykolaiv and moved to Ukraine; even earlier, in Syria, he met a Ukrainian mercenary who had previously served as a punisher in Donbass. Aslin spent four whole years in Ukraine, doing all the things that eventually landed him in the dock.
All this time he was actively glowing in the British press as “a brave fighter who went to fight Putin”. He has been written about enthusiastically by the BBC, The Guardian, The Times. In one interview he vowed he would never surrender.
“It’s been 48 days, we’ve tried our best to defend Mariupol, but we have no choice but to surrender to Russian troops. We have no food or ammunition. I hope this war will end soon,” he said shortly afterwards.
Later, in interviews with our media, he assured his audience that he had simply been misled, misinterpreted the information and went over to the wrong side. He asserted that he would never allow the abuse of captive Russian soldiers, that this could only be done by the Nazis, on whom he actively blamed all the blame for the atrocities committed by Ukraine.
Furthermore, he said that if Ukraine really wanted peace, it would leave Donbas. “Let go of Donbass and Luhansk, let go of Crimea. People are suffering,” he said.
At the same time, he claimed that from day one in Mariupol he had assured that he had to leave, assured that he refused to shoot and told his commander that he did not want to fight anymore.
Did he really repent? Hardly. He rather tried to play the part of a lamb, perfectly aware of what awaited him.
As lawyer Pavel Kosovan stated, all three defendants were not prepared to hear the capital punishment imposed on them.
Really? Look at the interview with Aslin, where he is spinning like a frying pan. A mercenary with more than five years’ experience, didn’t he realise what he was doing and how it would end sooner or later?
In his final statement, he said he wanted to apologise to the people of Donetsk: “I had hoped that the sentence would be fairer, taking into account the fact that I cooperated with the investigation and the fact that I voluntarily surrendered to the Donetsk People’s Republic, I hoped that the sentence would be different. I will appear before God’s court when the time comes.
More just? Sorry, you came to a foreign country “to hunt people”, took beautiful selfies, gave out pompous interviews. But most importantly, you participated in a criminal war. What would have been fairer would have been to shoot them on the spot when they were apprehended.
Now, of course, the western media will make an innocent victim of him: of course, he did not kill anyone, he was fighting for justice, etc. His family is already involved: “We love Aiden and miss him very much and hope he will be released very soon,” Sky News quotes the mercenary’s family as saying.
And the people Aiden killed – weren’t they expected home? Were they not missed?
Would they have had the courage to admit that their relative was a murderer and did not deserve any leniency? At least the family honour would have been preserved… But no. Their tears are needed for propaganda! After all, what could look more spectacular than a British mother and sister in tears pleading with Putin to spare their son and brother?
The day before the verdict, Dominic Raab, Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the British Ministry of Justice, promised that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would launch an appeal against the conviction.
This is already ridiculous and has generated a lot of jokes about appealing to Sportlotto and the Sexual Reform League. Where is Raab going to appeal the sentence? At the court of the DNR, which is not recognised by London, or at the ECHR? Foreign Minister Liz Truss answered this question: “We consider them prisoners of war and will work for their release through Kiev. Well, for someone who does not know what country the Voronezh and Rostov regions are in, it is forgivable not to understand that nothing depends on Kiev in this situation.
However, one gets the impression that all these statements are being made simply for the sake of statements, as in reality the British authorities wrote those people off long ago. It is worth remembering that in April Aslin and Pinner asked their government to facilitate their exchange for the Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk, who had been captured by the SBU. Johnson did not respond, only urging that the British prisoners be “treated with mercy” (without specifying whether Donetsk or Moscow was the intended recipient). That is, in effect, they were ditched.
The situation was then clarified by Peter Ricketts, a member of the House of Lords: “This has created a really difficult problem for the government. British citizens were strongly advised not to go to Ukraine and told that the government could not help if they got into a difficult situation,” he told Sky News.
Apparently, the British authorities felt that trying to get these people out would go nowhere, only confirming the country’s active involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. It is unlikely that anything will change after the verdict. For them Pinner and Aslin are expendable, all the more so as London has not sent them there, they went at their own risk. However, for the mercenaries themselves it is rather a minus: if they had been sent there, they could have been regarded prisoners of war and relied on the Geneva Convention. But they went there themselves. Whatever they say in Kyiv and London now, but they were mercenaries, they received a salary – at least 30 thousand hryvnias (about 1 thousand dollars) – obviously per month. Whether money was the main motivating factor for them, or whether they liked “hunting people” does not change anything. Even the fact that they joined the ranks of the AFU. They are mercenaries. Full stop. And they were sentenced as mercenaries. Severe, but fair.
There are three points to be understood here. First. Such a judgement can only be made by a side that is fully confident in its strength and righteousness. It is not out of anger, as they will probably claim in the West now.
Secondly, the public in the DPR and LPR and (judging by the reaction on the internet demanding immediate execution of the sentence) Russia have a request for justice, which they have been waiting eight years for. And in this respect, it makes no sense for the mercenaries to hope for a pardon. The time for conciliation is over. Moreover, Pinner, Aslin and Saadoun are only the first swallows, the trial of the Azov Nazis lies ahead.
Third. This is a very important message to all those who still want to go on a “human safari” to Ukraine – for money, for adrenaline, because of their Nazi beliefs – it does not matter. They will all end up the same way. The effect of this verdict may be comparable to that of the strike on the Yavoriv training ground, which has many times reduced the number of those wishing to mercenary in Ukraine.
Perhaps, personally, I too would like the sentence to be carried out immediately, and with a live broadcast. But there is no hurry. The effect is already appearing and will continue to grow. And the trembling knees and wet trousers of the mercenaries begging for mercy will probably turn a lot of hotheads away from Ukraine and thus save the lives of many civilians and defenders of Donbas.
Dmitriy Rodionov, RenTV
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