Putin ‘reclaiming land like Peter the Great’
Vladimir Putin has offered the clearest summation yet of his war goals as he compared himself to Peter the Great “reclaiming” territory for Russia.
At a meeting with young entrepreneurs and scientists, the Russian president drew a comparison between himself and the tsar who founded St Petersburg and ruled in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
“Peter the Great waged the Northern War for 21 years. You might think: he was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands . . . he wasn’t capturing them, he was reclaiming them.”
Putin went on to imply that he believed that swathes of Ukrainian land would soon be annexed in a similar fashion. The remarks suggest he is unlikely to end the invasion until he has claimed substantial territory.
Meanwhile, cases of desertion are growing every week in the Ukrainian army, according to a leaked intelligence report, as up to 200 of its outgunned soldiers are killed every day in the eastern Donbas region.
Kyiv’s forces are outnumbered 20 to one in artillery and 40 to one in ammunition by the Kremlin’s forces in the area, the Ukrainian report reveals.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to the Ukrainian president, said the battle over the war-torn country’s industrial heartlands was so intense that the army was suffering up to 200 military casualties a day.
It has also been revealed that two British men fighting for the Ukrainian army have been sentenced to death by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. Liz Truss, the British Foreign Secretary, condemned the “sham judgment” handed down in separatist-held Donetsk after a threeday show trial held behind closed doors.
Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, were captured in the besieged city of Mariupol in April after both had spent several years serving in the Ukrainian army. Ibrahim Sadun, a Moroccan student captured in March in Volnovakha, was also convicted of attempting “a violent seizure of power” by the “Supreme Court” of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
The men now face execution by firing squad after pleading guilty to mercenary and terrorist activities. They were not allowed to present any evidence or defend themselves.
Britain warned that they should be treated as prisoners of war and be entitled to combatant immunity under the Geneva Convention.
The men were told they had a month to appeal, which could commute the sentences to life or 25 years in prison. Pressure is likely to grow to secure the men’s release through a prisoner exchange.
In the run-up to the trial, Aslin was paraded on Russian state television pleading with UK PM Boris Johnson to secure the release of Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian politician facing charges of treason in Ukraine. Putin is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter.