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One of the British soldiers captured by Russia in the fighting on the Ukrainian front in Mariupol – and who was released last week – recounted the torture to which he was subjected by enemy military forces in the last six months of captivity.
Shaun Pinner, 48, says he was subjected to stab wounds and electric shocks and that for 24 hours they forced him to listen to music on repeat: Slipknot and ABBA. He tells the British newspaper The Sun that they beat him for 20 minutes a day and the electric shocks to which they subjected him lasted 40 seconds: “I never want to listen to an ABBA song again. I always hated them, so it was really torture.”
He claims that only for months ate dry bread and drank dirty water. He lived through terrifying moments while the Russian fighters laughed at him: “A man pointed a gun at the back of my head, loaded it and said ‘you are going to die now’. I thought it would be the end of me, that’s when he laughed and said he was joking… Then he started whipping me, “he says in an interview.
It turned into a carnage as the Russians surrounded us with mortars and artillery shells. We were surrounded by many bodies, it felt like an apocalypse. zombie. I was surrounded by Russian separatists, they stripped me naked and stuck a knife in my thigh for no reason.”
Now with his family, he admits that he feared the worst when his oppressor threatened to kill him and that the family would monitor everything: “One of the guards said he was going to kill me and sent the video to my mother.” On another occasion, they took away his wedding ring and he admits that his wife was one of the people who suffered the most in the whole situation, from the moment he was captured: “[Em abril] I called my wife and told her my last words before I died, but she didn’t even cry. He yelled at me that I was a warrior and that I would survive. In a very cruel way they stole my wedding ringIt was my worst day.”
Pinner was fighting with Ukrainian naval troops at Mariupol when the Russians captured and held him captive. Tried in a Donetsk court, he was eventually sentenced to death. At the end of June he appealed the decision and asked to be sentenced to life in prison. He was released last Wednesday along with nine other prisoners, the result of an agreement between Russia and Ukraine in which Saudi Arabia was a mediator.
British soldier on death row calls for sentence to be changed to life in prison
There are increasing reports of prisoners of war now released by Russia. Aiden Aslin, 28, who wrestled alongside Shaun, says he went through the same abuse, but was asked the question, “Do you want a quick kill or a beautiful kill?
“Do you want a quick death or a beautiful death?” British Man Who Fought Alongside Ukrainians Recounts Months In Russian Captivity
Source: Observadora
