Two more Britons in Ukraine face death penalty as ‘mercenaries’

Two Britons are facing the death penalty after pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine charged them with “mercenary activities”, Tass, the Russian state news agency, reported yesterday, citing a source within the separatists’ “power structures”.

Dylan Healy and Andrew Hill are the latest foreigners to face “mercenary” charges in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), an unrecognised breakaway statelet backed by Moscow. “Criminal cases have been opened and charges have been filed under article 430 of the criminal code of the DNR (“mercenarism”) against British citizens Dylan Healy and Andrew Hill,” Tass quoted its source as saying. The two men are being held in pre-trial detention and “do not want to testify and co-operate within the framework of the criminal cases”, the source added.

Healy, 22, was detained in late April at a Russian military checkpoint in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region while helping with the evacuation of a Ukrainian woman and two children, according to the BBC.

A trained chef from Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, Healy was in Ukraine volunteering as an aid worker, according to the humanitarian organisation Presidium Network.

Dominik Byrne, director of operations at Presidium Network, said: “We have provided evidence and verified statements to the British government and Dylan’s family that clearly demonstrates that Dylan was an independent humanitarian volunteer in Ukraine at the time of his capture.

 “Dylan was not attached to any military or paramilitary unit, and at no time did he participate in any military action. The charges brought by the Donetsk People’s Republic are not supported by evidence and can therefore only be explained as a politically motivated action by DNR and the Russian government.”

Hill, a military volunteer fighting with the Ukrainian army, was captured in the southwestern Mykolaiv region at about the same time. In late April, Russia’s defence ministry published a video showing unidentified Russian forces in Ukraine questioning an injured British man who identified himself as Andrew Hill and who spoke with a British accent.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is understood to be actively investigating and is providing support to the men’s families.

A spokeswoman said: “We condemn the exploitation of prisoners of war and civilians 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.”

Healy and Hill are among thousands of westerners who have gone to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion, either to help with humanitarian aid or to join the ranks of Ukraine’s army under a specially created “foreign legion”.

Last month, a Donetsk People’s Republic court sentenced Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin, two British nationals, and Brahim Saadoun, a Moroccan citizen, to death by firing squad on the same “mercenary” charges.

Kyiv and its western allies harshly condemned the verdict, saying that the three men were protected under the Geneva Conventions as legitimate members of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Russia has said it views foreigners fighting for Ukraine as “mercenaries” and that the men’s fate is in the hands of DNR authorities. Tass reported yesterday that the DNR’s Supreme Court had received appeals from Pinner and Saadoun’s lawyers, while Aslin had yet to submit an appeal.

Observers have said that the death penalties may have been intended as a shock tactic to use as bargaining power in a future prisoner swap.

Two former US servicemen, Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, are also in DNR custody after they were captured during fighting near the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Britain has declined to deal publicly with Russian proxy authorities that it does not recognise, preferring to ask Kyiv for assistance.