The wife of British soldier
Shaun Pinner who was sentenced to death by firing squad after being captured by
Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine has blasted the ‘absurdity and
cynicism of this rotten and false event called a trial’.
Larysa Pinner, a Ukrainian
native, said her husband was a ‘warrior’ and warned that the ‘circus’
surrounding her husband’s sentencing will be dragged out by Russia’s
propaganda machine for maximum effect.
‘We all understand that
Russian propaganda uses this case to the fullest, and this circus will go on
for a long time,’ she wrote on Facebook.
She added that Ukrainian and
British officials were ‘doing everything they can to influence this
lawlessness’ and ‘resolve this situation’.
‘The International Committee
of the Red Cross is aware, they will even more actively demand access to the
guys (yet Russia has not given permission, which is expected).
‘I still pray that our
Warriors can endure all of this!’ Larysa said.
Mr Pinner, 48, was sentenced
along with 28-year-old Aiden Aslin, another British fighter serving with the
Ukrainian military who was detained by Russian forces in Mariupol.
British Army veteran Mr Pinner
from Watford looked distraught in the caged dock as the death sentence was read
out yesterday, while Mr Aslin, from Newark in Nottinghamshire, remained silent
but composed.
Mr Pinner and Mr Aslin were
previously forced to beg for their lives during scripted phone calls to family
members and UK journalists by the Russian-backed separatists who are holding
them captive.
They were convicted of being
‘mercenaries’ and conducting ‘terrorist activities’ for fighting with Ukrainian
troops, in what Tory minister Robert Jenrick called a
‘Soviet-era style show trial’, weeks after they were captured during the siege
of Mariupol.
The pair, both signed-up
members of Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, were sentenced to death and are set
to face a firing squad, pending appeal.
Mr Pinner’s mother, Denise
Price, 65, also reported getting a phone call and said it seems as though the
British fighters are ‘being used for propaganda’, according to the Sun.
Meanwhile, it is understood Mr.
Aslin’s mother Ang Wood found out about the barbaric sentence while watching
the TV news at the family home in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
The 28-year-old’s devastated
family, who met officials at the Ukrainian Embassy in London on Thursday,
demanded he is ‘treated with respect’ and urged both the UK Government to help
bring them home safely – something a Whitehall source has cautioned could make
matters worse.
In a statement, the family
said: ‘We’ve heard the news from Donetsk and need some time to take everything
in.
‘We love Aiden with all our
hearts. He and Shaun, as members of Ukrainian armed forces, should be treated
with respect just like any other prisoners of war. They are not, and never being,
mercenaries.
‘We hope that this sentence
will be overturned and beseech the governments of the UK and Ukraine to do
everything in their power to have them returned to us safely, and soon.
‘We can only imagine what they
are going through right now. This is a very upsetting development and we ask
that our privacy is respected at this time.’
It has also emerged that the
key to the British men’s fate could be oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, known as
Vladimir Putin’s ‘man in Ukraine’ and currently in Kyiv’s custody. The death
penalties handed out to Mr Pinner and Mr Aslin could be a tactic by Russia to
increase pressure on getting Medvedchuk out of Ukrainian hands.
