Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I’m willing to die for Russia, says traitor
Thug claims he is laying landlines on front
If I thought of death I wouldn’t be able to do my job AIDEN MINNIS BRIT FIGHTING IN UKRAINE
THIS is the far-right English thug who volunteered to fight for Putin while boasting of his “Irish family”.
Aiden Minnis, 37, a former drug addict and alcoholic with a history of racist attacks and beating up homeless people, posted a pic of himself on the Russian social media site VK holding up the tricolour.
Minnis, who poses with another man holding semi-automatic weapons and wearing Russian uniforms, told the Mirror: “My family heritage is from Ireland and I have Irish family. But also an ideological thing.”
The ex-british National
Front member did not expand on what ideology he meant.
Minnis calls himself a “Z Patriot” and says Putin is
“still the greatest politician on earth”. In 2006, Minnis, admitted beating up relatives of a driver whose dangerous driving had caused the deaths of his cousin and girlfriend in Chippenham, Wilts. In December 2008 he was jailed for a racist attack. In January 2008, he beat up a homeless man. His lawyer told the court: “He was a member of the National Front, a class A drug addict and an alcoholic by the age of 20.” The thug says he is the only foreigner serving in his company, which is in Luhansk, a mostly Russian-held region of eastern Ukraine at the centre of intense fighting.
The convicted criminal claims he lays landmines and explosives as part of his frontline duties.
Minnis, 37, says he is “doing the Lord’s work” by helping Putin fight the illegal war that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians since it began in February 2022.
He said: “If I thought of death I wouldn’t be able to do my job, I just react, do and follow orders.
“I want to live and I plan to live, but it’s in God’s hands. I’m prepared to die for the cause if necessary.”
Minnis, who is from Wiltshire, claims his proudest moment since joining up in January was “swearing an oath to Russia and standing with my unit as the national anthem played”.
He and Ben Stimson, 48, of Salford, are the first known British people fighting for Russia in Ukraine. They have been branded traitors by former British army commander Colonel Richard Kemp.
Minnis told the Mirror he had been “diverted at the last minute” and was “in a forest awaiting orders”.
Minnis, who described his role as a “sapper”– combat engineer, said: “I went out in early 2023 to join a unit, but I didn’t prepare myself correctly, so went home, and came out in December last year.”
He says police held him under the Terrorism
Act on the way to Russia, but added: “They knew what I was doing but didn’t have the evidence to arrest me for it.”
Asked if he has ever killed anyone himself, he replied: “I’m not going to answer that”.
Disowned by most of his family and friends, Minnis, said: “They are upset but most aren’t very political.
They don’t really understand the reasons.”
He claims the Russian soldiers are his family, although he doesn’t speak Russian. Minnis said: “They are my brothers, I trust them and I’ll die for them.”
He has no plans to return to the UK. “I will stay here,” he said. “I’m in the process of obtaining a Russian passport as we speak. I will be a Russian citizen.” And Minnis claimed tyrant Vladimir Putin “is still the greatest politician on earth and of the past century”.
The Russian propaganda machine is in overdrive about the two men who state media said had “deliberately chosen the right side of history!”.