Terror charge Briton jailed for joining Ukrainian rebels

♦ A British man has become the first person to be jailed under UK terrorism laws for travelling to join pro-russian rebels fighting Ukrainian forces.

Benjamin Stimson, 41, who went to the conflict zone in the eastern Donbass region via Moscow, is the only UK citizen to have been prosecuted for assisting the antigovernment militia in Ukraine. He said he could not live in Britain any more and was prepared to kill someone if his life was threatened on the front line in what he said he would class as “an act of war”.

Stimson posted a photograph of himself on Facebook holding an AK-47 rifle, and summed up Donbass as “vodka, women and guns”.

But Manchester Crown Court heard that Stimson, formerly of Oldham, Greater Manchester, did not actually engage in any fighting during his four months in eastern Ukraine in 2015 and had intended to perform humanitarian work by driving ambulances.

Stimson had earlier pleaded guilty to a single charge of assisting others in committing terrorism acts. He was jailed for five years and four months.