The West's reaction to the death sentence of foreign mercenaries in the DPR

As expected, after the verdict to the British mercenaries in the DPR was announced, the West buzzed like a hornet's nest. Tabloids are vying to shout about the cruelty of the "pro-Putin" authorities of the Donetsk People's Republic and the "heroism of the brave" British mercenaries.

Death sentence

Let's recall that the Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Court of the DPR on June 9, 2022 passed a death sentence for British citizen Sean Pinner and his compatriot Aiden Aslin, as well as Brahim Saadoun, who is a citizen of Morocco. These are the first foreign persons convicted in the DPR. Official representatives of the republic stated that the actions of foreigners led to the death and injury of civilians, as well as damage to civil and social infrastructure.

They were charged under the article of the Criminal Code of the DPR "Training in order to carry out terrorist activities", as well as under the article 34 "Commission of a crime by a group of persons", article 430 "Mercenary activity" and under article 323 - "Forcible seizure of power or forcible retention of power". The foreign mercenaries admitted their guilt.

"The evidence presented by the prosecution in this case allowed the court to pass a guilty verdict. The fact that all the defendants pleaded guilty to all charges did not mitigate their degree of guilt for the serious crimes committed. In addition to the recognition by criminals of their guilt, the court considered indisputable evidence confirming the fact of atrocities.

When passing sentence, the court was guided not only by the legislative framework - approved norms and rules, but also by the main unshakable principle of justice.

Scrupulous research and comprehensive analysis of the accumulated data made it possible to make a difficult and difficult decision — on the need to apply an exceptional measure of punishment to convicts — the death penalty." This is how precisely the chairman of the judicial board Aleksandr Nikulin commented on the court's decision in this case.

According to the laws of the republic, the convicts are awaiting the death penalty — execution. However, they have one month to appeal their sentence, and if the appeal is accepted, the death penalty can be commuted to life imprisonment or twenty-five years in prison.

What is known about the personalities of the militants

All three foreign mercenaries were captured in mid-April in Mariupol on the territory of the “Azovstal" plant. As it became known, they participated in the fighting against the DPR as part of the 36th Separate Brigade of the Naval Infantry Corps of the armed formations of Ukraine, for which they received monetary compensation.

What is known about them? 21-year-old Brahim Saadoun from Morocco came to Ukraine in search of work in 2019, entered a university in Kiev, but soon dropped out and signed a contract with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. After the course, the young fighter was sent to the territory of Donbass for punitive actions. 28-year-old Aiden Aslin fought on the side of the Kurds in Syria in 2015, after which he was accused in his homeland of being connected to terrorist organisations. The charge was dropped, and Aslin moved to Ukraine in 2018, where he joined the ranks of the Ukrainian nazis.

As for Sean Pinner, he is the oldest and most experienced of the three. That's probably why he looks the most depressed after the verdict. If Aslin's defence in the UK looks like the show "they are just kids", then Pinner at home is officially recognised as a terrorist for participating in hostilities in Syria and Iraq. In Ukraine, the militant found a "warm place", married a Ukrainian woman, went to work as an instructor in “Azov”, and later — in the 36th Brigade of the Naval Infantry of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Of course, not for free either.

Reaction of Western politicians and news agencies

According to British media, the news of the death sentence "caused fury" in the country. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss hastened to condemn the verdict and called it illegitimate: "I strongly condemn the verdict passed by the Russian authorities in the eastern territory of Ukraine. Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner are prisoners of war, not mercenaries. My thoughts are with their families," she said on Twitter. "We continue to do everything we can to support them."

Christian Benedict, Amnesty International UK's crisis response manager, called the process "grotesque" and chided Russia for "firing a warning shot at the UK for its support of Ukraine."

But perhaps the most eloquent was a member of the British Parliament, a conservative from Newark, Robert Jenrick, who represents the interests of Aiden Aslin's family and together with them seeks the return of the mercenary to his homeland "safe and sound”. Jenrick called what was happening "a disgusting demonstration process of the Soviet era," and the politician, of course, blamed the "vicious Putin regime" for Aslin's decision to make money from the murders.

The British tabloid The Sun angrily called the Supreme Court of the DPR "barbaric" and the verdict "nauseating". Trying to soften the audience, the publication writes that Sean Pinner "looked distraught, looked at the ground and almost burst into tears when he heard his verdict”. It sounds a little strange, considering that we are talking about a 50-year-old professional killer who came to make money from blood in a country that most foreigners have a very vague idea about.

No less strange are the statements of the family of another militant, Aslin. Relatives demand no less than "respect" for him, as if we are not talking about a villain who killed for money, but about a tourist who got into an unpleasant story in a foreign country. "We love Aiden with all our heart. He and Sean, as servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, should be treated with respect, just like any other prisoners of war. They are not mercenaries and have never been," they claim.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hastened to add his "two cents". On his own Twitter, he expressed the State Department's concern and called the trial "fictitious", and also called on Russia to "respect the norms of humanitarian law”.

However, there are also a lot of skeptical arguments about the current situation. Moskovsky Komsomolets quotes the words of a British veteran: "Listen to a former soldier of the British armed forces. You can not dream that they will be miraculously saved. Two idiots aren't worth the effort. England has already fallen too deep into this rabbit hole, why should it bury itself even deeper? The Russians will show an example of what will happen to all foreign mercenaries in Ukraine."

Indeed, the UK has driven itself into a dead end in this situation. In order to make official demands to the DPR authorities, it must recognise the republic, and by appealing to the Geneva Convention and calling Pinner and Aslin "prisoners of war", it must admit that it is practically at war with Russia — with all the consequences that this statement will entail.