FOCUS – Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, appeared in two Russian videos asking Boris Johnson to be swapped with Viktor Medvedchuk.
“I’m Shaun Pinner, I’m a British citizen and I was captured in Mariupol”. So begins the video released on Russian screens on Monday, April 18. Clean-shaven, face contorted, the Briton, clad in a spotted hoodie, looks tired. The man, in his fifties, tells the camera that he was captured in the port city of Mariupol, which had been under siege for several weeks. Today he is calling for the exchange of Boris Johnson – along with another British citizen – for a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician.
Also read Juice, the pilot who challenges the Russians in the Ukrainian skies
The second Briton is called Aiden Aslin. The 28-year-old appeared on Russian television four days earlier, on the evening of April 14. Unlike Shaun Pinner, he was handcuffed and interviewed directly by a Russian journalist who asked him very direct questions: “Why do some people kill civilians” or “Aren’t you surprised by this attitude towards civilians?”… The man answers questions , seated on a chair, wearing a T-shirt with the emblem of the far-right Ukrainian Azov battalion. When these two British citizens find themselves at the heart of Russian propaganda, several questions arise: What were they doing in Ukraine? Who are you ? Can they be exchanged? Le Figaro takes stock.
Who are the two Brits being held by the Russians?
According to information from the British newspaper The Times, Aiden Aslin, 28, is a former carer. The young man from Newyark has already experienced war: in 2015 he joined the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria, he took part in the “Battle of Raqqa” in 2017, where he again faced the jihadists, and then moved on to Greece to a Kurdish refugee camp. When he first returned from Syria in 2015, he was arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences. The charges against him were eventually dropped.
After all these adventures, Adrien Aslin left his native country for Ukraine and met his Ukrainian wife there. He then joined the Marine Corps of the Ukrainian Army. In this regard, he joined the 36th Marine Brigade. So he doesn’t have mercenary status, as the Russians claimed in the video. In fact, mercenary consists of selling yourself as a soldier in a foreign country, it is a person who does not live in the country in question who is recruited to fight.
Shaun Pinner, originally from Bedfordshire, is a former British soldier. The 48-year-old served for nine years with the Royal Anglian Regiment – an infantry regiment in the British Army, according to The Times. His family described him as “funny, very loved and caring” in a statement Monday. According to her, he was “well respected” in the British Army. As a soldier he carried out several missions abroad, notably in Northern Ireland and Bosnia.
But like Aiden, he left his country in 2018 and moved to Ukraine, which he describes as his “country of choice,” his family said. There he met his wife and enlisted in the Ukrainian army to “put his previous experience and training to good use.” “He is doing well in the Ukrainian Navy and is proud of his unit,” his relatives said. Again, Shaun Pinner cannot be called a mercenary who joined Ukraine.
Who is Viktor Medvedchuk at the heart of the exchange?
During the video clips, Shaun Pinner, along with Aiden Aslin, asks to be swapped out for Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian businessman known to be pro-Kremlin. Ukrainian authorities had just announced the April 12 arrest of this close friend of Vladimir Putin. In a short video also released by Ukraine on Monday, April 18, the businessman and MP said, facing the camera: I would like to address a request to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy , to exchange me from the Ukrainian side for the defenders of Mariupol and its inhabitants”.
Viktor Medvedchuk was arrested by the Ukrainians on April 12. STATE SECURITY SERVICE / REUTERS
Viktor Medvedchuk, the twelfth wealth in Ukraine in 2021 at $620 million according to Forbes magazine, is known for his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the data subject says is the godfather of one of his daughters. He is the founder of the pro-Russian opposition Platform for Life party, which had around thirty MPs in Ukraine’s parliament before it was banned after the Russian attack in March.
Also readWar in Ukraine: the fall of Medvedchuk, the man who dreamed of becoming Putin’s proconsul in Kyiv
Asked about a possible exchange last week, the Kremlin emphasized that Viktor Medvedchuk is “not a Russian citizen”.
How is the British government positioned?
Following the kidnapping of two of his fellow citizens, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office called on the Kremlin to treat the prisoners humanely. The UK government has been providing support to the families of the two men in recent days but said intelligence gathering and consular assistance on the ground was “limited”. At the BBC, a ministry source condemned the “exploitation of prisoners of war for political ends”.
Who is responsible for the exchange?
As several British media reported, the kidnapping of the two Britons in Ukraine is a special situation. Unlike the British, who would have joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, the two hostages left well before the conflict and found an adoption site there. On GB News, an English news channel, security expert Will Geddes said that the two British nationals being held hostage by Putin’s army will only be exchanged for Russians by the Ukrainian state.
According to the British expert, the fact that the two men joined the Ukrainian armed forces in 2018, that they both have Ukrainian wives and live there is a turning point: It shows that they are also part of Ukraine and that they are not fully responsible the British government, he explains to the TV station’s journalist. For him, therefore, it is up to Ukraine to exchange prisoners.
SEE ALSO – War in Ukraine: Zelenskyj demands a prisoner exchange from Russia