Citizens of Great Britain are also fighting in Ukraine on the side of the Russian army. That is, a country that is one of the major supporters of Kyiv and whose government strictly rejected the Russian invasion and applied a number of sanctions packages against the Kremlin.
Currently, two Britons who are participating in the fighting in Ukraine in the ranks of Russian units are drawing attention to each other. They are Ben Stimson from Oldham and Aiden Minnis from Wiltshire, writes the BBC.
Stimson posted a video on YouTube in which he claimed to be on the Russian side. “Each person makes a choice. Many of us foreign volunteers decided to switch to the Russian side,” he claims.
In another video, he brags about Russian weapons. He says he’s back in Russia and even has Ukrainian ammunition paid for by the British taxpayer.
Stimson was jailed in the UK in 2015 for joining pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
“Yes, I’m back in Russia. I’m back in uniform,” British tabloid The Sun quoted him as saying.
The public station contacted Stimson’s father. He said that he cut off all communication with his son and that he himself was “horrified” when he learned that he was fighting for Russia again. “I have no control over him, he is a 48-year-old man,” reports Martin Stimson for the BBC.
Remind yourself
Pavel “Kavkaz” Botka fights on the side of pro-Russian separatists. He is also hiding from a Czech prison in Donbass. In an interview for Seznam Zprávy, he offers a view of the war through his own lens, which coincides with official Russian propaganda.
The other Briton, Aiden Minnis, was in prison for assault before joining the Russian army. At the same time, he was connected to the far-right National Front in England.
Both men are believed to be the first known British nationals to fight on the Russian side.
Philip Ingram, a former senior British military intelligence officer, told BBC North West Tonight that the decision to fight for Russia was “signature of his own death warrant”.
Ingram suggested that the fact that the two men posted both videos and pictures on social media could provide Ukrainian intelligence services with information that could “affect their life prospects.”
At the same time, he added that both Britons face criminal prosecution at home.
