One of ten foreigners freed in the Russian-Ukraine prisoner exchange last week, former British soldier Shaun Pinner, 48, recounted his time as a hostage of Ukrainian separatists to the British tabloid The Sun, in an interview published on Saturday (24).
The Briton, who is with his family in a region near Cambridge, was captured in April after the siege of the city of Mariupol – married to a Ukrainian, he had served in the British army before and was hired by the government of Volodymyr Zelensky to fight in Donbass. The region in eastern Ukraine has been occupied by Russian-speaking separatists and is home to two of the provinces that Moscow seeks to annex.
Pinner claims that as soon as he turned himself in, he was electrocuted and wounded with a knife. In the six months he was detained, he was continually tortured and fed only rations of poor bread and water.
According to the former soldier, one of the torture methods was to play music 24 hours a day, in order to prevent the prisoners from sleeping. In the selection, bands like the 80’s Abba and Slipknot, from metal.
Pinner says that if he slept outside the specified period, he was beaten. “I never want to hear another Abba song in my life. I hated the band before, so it was really torture.”
In June, he and another British fighter, Aiden Aslin, were sentenced to death as mercenaries in a controversial trial — British Prime Minister Liz Truss called the case a sham.
Then he was transferred to another prison, in Donetsk, also in Donbass. He claims that conditions were better there, but the torture sessions continued. “This time they played ‘Believe’ by Cher,” he says.
He and Aslin were released in a major exchange of prisoners held in Mariupol. In addition to the group of ten foreigners of which they were part – half of whom were British –, another 205 Ukrainian prisoners were still freed by Russia. Kiev, in contrast, released 55 Russian detainees.
Also last week, a UN commission of inquiry accused Russia of committing war crimes, including torture, rape, confinement of children and summary executions in occupied territories.
The group that led the investigations made accusations against Moscow at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva – Russian representatives emptied the bench and did not respond to the complaints.
Despite not having officially spoken out after the complaint, Moscow denies the allegations and says they are part of a smear campaign. It also claims not to deliberately attack civilians.
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