Chris Garrett recalled his last conversation with British fighter Aidan Aslin. Aslin was hidden in Mariupol and surrounded by Russian forces. He had run out of food and ammunition. It seemed unlikely that he would escape the city alive. “We spoke on the phone. Aiden told me, “I think we’re going to have to surrender,” Garrett said.
Two days later, Aslin and his British counterpart, Sean Piner, were negotiating with a Russian commander. They emerged from the ghostly, ruined ruins of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters continue to remain in underground tunnels. Both are now prisoners of war in Donetsk, the eastern Ukrainian city ruled by pro-Moscow separatists since 2014.
The couple is also at the center of a political dispute. Downing Street suggested that they should not have been in Mariupol. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said he sympathized with the British captives, but they had fought “illegally” in Ukraine. He did not comment on the government’s efforts to return them.
Chris Gareth in Kyiv. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian
Garrett, a British fighter working as a sapper in Ukraine, said Lewis’s remarks were “completely untrue.” The two signed a legal long-term contract several years ago with Ukraine’s defense ministry and were not in the same category as foreign legion volunteers who arrived in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, he said. “They have homes and partners here. Sean has a Ukrainian wife, “he said.
“They are very nice boys,” Garrett added, speaking in a café on Khreshchatyk’s main boulevard in Kyiv. “They have gone through absolute hell. There is no way to know what they went through. Sean was wounded by shrapnel. No one really expected them to come out. If they had surrendered to the Chechens, they would have been dead.
Garrett’s ties with Ukraine date back to 2014. A former soldier from the Isle of Man, he visited Kyiv after the pro-European Maidan revolution. He later joined a Ukrainian brigade clearing mines and unexploded ordnance. He left in 2017 and returned four days after Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack in February.
Both of his friends have given interviews to Russian state media. Garrett said it was clear that they spoke under duress and were exploited by Moscow for propaganda purposes. British propagandist Graham Phillips, who worked for the Kremlin’s RT channel, described Aslin as a “mercenary”. Garrett said: “I watched the video yesterday. I don’t think that’s right. This is against the Geneva Conventions [to show footage of them]”Prisoners of war are required to state their real name and rank when asked, but cannot be forced to provide more information,” the conventions said.
Russia’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that the two had been “fed, watered and provided with the necessary assistance”.
Aslin served as a Marine in the 36th Brigade of Ukraine. However, he appeared on Russian television in a T-shirt with the logo of the far-right Azov Battalion. Putin says his “special operation” in Ukraine is needed to “denazify” the country. “The T-shirt looks brand new. It wouldn’t be Aiden. “The Russians probably understood that when they took over the Azov base in Mariupol,” Garrett said. Garrett worked with the Azov Battalion, but he said he was not right-wing or sympathetic to the Nazis.
He himself is a target for slander by the Russian state media. He was stationed in Mariupol in January 2015 when he was subjected to indiscriminate rocket attacks from separatist-controlled territory. He saw a dead young woman, half blown up in a shop window. “I covered her head with a bright pink dress,” he said. A TV crew ambushed him minutes later and he was accused by RT of being an American spy.
The Kremlin seems to be hinting that it may be ready to exchange the two British prisoners with Viktor Medvedchuk, a prominent pro-Moscow Ukrainian politician. Medvedchuk was arrested last week while trying to flee Ukraine. Aslin mentioned a possible exchange with Medvedchuk in his interview. “They feed him with remarks to say,” Garrett said, adding that his friends were “mentally strong boys.”
Garrett, 38, was sarcastic about some of the Western volunteers who arrived in Ukraine eager to shoot at the Russians. These include ex-servicemen from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries. “Some are useful. But many tell great stories. “He said ex-soldiers should not volunteer unless they have specific skills, such as training in the use of anti-aircraft and anti-armor weapons.
Few foreign troops, he added, had experience of what was happening in Donbass, the new focus for the military operation and Russia’s offensive. He said the fighting was characterized by heavy bombing, artillery and relentless mortar fire. “We are seeing the biggest trench warfare since World War II,” he said, adding that both sides were suffering losses.
Garrett is now heading east. He admitted that he did not look forward to returning to the front line. His own skills in disposing of munitions and removing cables are likely to be needed for years to come, he said. The Russian army has left mine traps and ammunition in the Kyiv region during a month-long occupation, and Donbass and other areas have also been mined en masse.
His prognosis for Mariupol was bleak. On Thursday, Putin declared victory in the port city of the Sea of Azov and said Russian forces would not try to storm the Azovstal plant. Instead, they would block it to make sure no one came out. About 1,000 civilians, including women and children, are trapped. Attempts by the Kiev government to evacuate them failed.
What will happen to the Ukrainian fighters who are still at the Mariupol steel plant? “I’m afraid everyone will die,” he said. “They know that if they surrender, they will be killed. The factory is designed to withstand a nuclear strike. This is a huge facility built on several levels. But sooner or later they will be left without food. Their torches will stop working. “
He added: “If it was me, I would rather die of an air strike than starve to death in a dark basement.
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