A second British mercenary soldier fighting in Ukraine has been captured by Russian forces and “paraded” in a chilling video.
In the footage, Shaun Pinner, 48, explained he had been taken as a POW in the besieged city of Mariupol and then transferred to Donetsk.
Earlier this week, fellow Brit soldier Aiden Aslin, 28, from Newark, Nottinghamshire, was plastered across Russian TV after also being captured.
The south-eastern Ukrainian city and region of Donetsk declared itself ‘independent’ just prior to Vladimir Putin launched his catastrophic invasion in late February.
Moscow-backed separatists captured Donetsk and Luhansk before they were declared People’s Republics.
Having failed to take Ukrainian capital Kyiv, despite weeks of bombardment and allegedly losing up to 20,000 troops, Russian forces have pulled out and re-focused on the eastern border regions already held.
Southern port city Mariupol has been close to obliterated by Kremlin missiles, with Shaun saying he had been fighting there for five or six weeks in the chilling video shared by news outlet Axiom.
He says: “Hi I’m Shaun Pinner, I am a citizen of the UK, I was captured in Mariupol I am part of the 36 Brigade First Battalion Ukrainian Marines.
“I was fighting in Mariupol for five-six weeks and now I’m in Donetsk People’s Republic.”
He had previously been filmed fighting alongside Ukrainian troops.
Reports from Moscow had claimed he had been killed during the siege of Mariupol but it is understood he was only injured and in a field hospital.
Chris Garrett, who previously fought alongside Shaun in the Donbas in 2014, told the Sun: “He was wounded by shrapnel from a tank round in Mariupol and is in a military hospital.
“I’m told right now he’s not dead and I trust the people who have told me. They’re also British.
“I hope their information is right. It’s entirely possible that the photocopy of his passport that the Russians were hawking around were looted from another place and used for propaganda.”
Aiden, a former care worker, was pictured handcuffed and bruised on Thursday.
The wife of Putin ally Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of Ukraine’s opposition party, who was re-captured by secret service agents after escaping house arrest, has called for her husband to be swapped for Aiden and Shaun.
Oxana Marchenko made a video address calling for the swap.
“I, Oxana Marchenko, spouse of opposition politician, people’s deputy of Ukraine Viktor Medvedchyuk, address the relatives of captured citizens of Great Britain Aiden Aslin and of Shaun Pinner,” she says.
“It is in your power to ask the PM of your country Boris Johnson to influence Ukrainian leadership and to achieve Aiden’s and Shaun’s release by their exchange for….my husband Viktor Medvedchyuk.”
