Russia told to save death row British fighters

RUSSIA has been ordered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to ensure two British soldiers captured in Mariupol while fighting in the Ukrainian army are not executed.

Moscow has been asked to intervene in the case of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner who were sentenced to death last month by a court in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

They were falsely accused of being mercenaries when in fact they have both been fully enlisted soldiers in the Ukrainian military since 2018.

Russia “should ensure that the death penalty imposed on the applicants is not carried out”, the ECHR said in a statement yesterday.

The two men had been deployed to Mariupol where Ukrainian soldiers were defending against intense bombardment from the Russian army, which essentially destroyed the city.

The ECHR went on to state that Russia must “ensure appropriate conditions of their detention; and provide them with any necessary medical assistance and medication”. However, the Russian parliament passed a law last month which removed the country from the ECHR’S jurisdiction, the latest step to deepen its status as a pariah state.

“Russia no longer complies with the prescriptions of the ECHR, that’s all there is to say,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman. He stated that “the fate of these mercenaries” would be decided by leaders in the DPR.

Russian officials say that the British Government approached Moscow for help in freeing the Britons, but was referred to the unrecognised leaders of the separitist DPR in eastern Ukraine.

Britain has so far declined to publicly to raise the issue with authorities in the DPR, whose independence is recognised internationally by only Russia and Syria.

“We are doing everything we can to support the men and are in close contact with and [are] helping their families,” said a Foreign Office spokesman.

“We condemn the exploitation of prisoners of war for political purposes and have raised this with Russia.

“We are in constant contact with the government of Ukraine on their cases and are fully supportive of Ukraine in its efforts to get them released.”

‘We condemn exploitation of prisoners of war for political purposes and have raised this with Russia’