‘An outrage’: Albanese condemns Russia’s jailing of Australian Oscar Jenkins

Anthony Albanese lashed the sentence handed to Australian Oscar Jenkins as he tries to ‘nut down’ a meeting with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in Rome this weekend.

Oscar Jenkins in a picture released by the Lugansk People’s Republic Prosecutor’s Office.

Anthony Albanese has condemned the “outrageous” 13 year prison sentence handed to Australian Oscar Jenkins who was captured by Russia while fighting for Ukraine.

As he tries to “nut down” a meeting with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in Rome this weekend, the Prime Minister lashed Russia over its sham trial of Mr Jenkins and the ongoing war.

“Let’s be very clear, this sentence by Russia is an outrage,” Mr Albanese said.

“This conflict began with them choosing to invade a sovereign nation and to abrogate their responsibility to uphold international law.

“So we’ll continue to advocate very strongly on behalf of Mr Jenkins, and we don’t believe that this is a legitimate decision by a legal process in Russia that is very politicised.”

Mr Albanese, who arrived in Rome Friday night, was eager to meet with Mr Zelensky on the sidelines of Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration on Sunday but was navigating “travel and time zones”.

European nations have been co-ordinating with the United States this week on additional sanctions against Russia should Moscow continue to refuse an “unconditional ceasefire” in Ukraine.

Mr Jenkins, a 33-year-old from Melbourne, was found guilty of being a “mercenary”, Russian-installed prosecutors said on Friday night.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has also lashed Moscow over his sentence, saying Australia was “appalled at the sham trial and 13-year sentence”.

“As a full serving member of the regular Armed Forces of Ukraine, Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war,” she said.

Russia’s prosecution service in the eastern Ukrainian region of Lugansk said in a statement that Mr Jenkins would serve his sentence “in a strict regime penal colony”.

Senator Wong said Russia was “obligated to treat him in accordance with international humanitarian law, including humane treatment”.

The government is “working with Ukraine and … the Red Cross” to advocate for Mr Jenkins’ welfare and release, she said.

Mr Jenkins was captured near Makiivka, a village on the Zherebets River in Luhansk, while fighting with the 402nd Rifle Battalion in Ukraine’s 66th Mechanised Brigade.

According to the indictment, he arrived in Ukraine in February last year and received a “monthly reward” of between $11,400 and $15,000.

Anthony Albanese in Rome with Ambassador to the Holy See, Keith Pitt. Picture: Lydia Lynch.

He was earlier reported to have been fighting with the International Legion of Defence of Ukraine, a coalition comprised of former soldiers and foreign volunteers.

Russia and its eastern Ukrainian proxies consider foreigners travelling to fight in Ukraine as “mercenaries”.

This enables them to prosecute them under its criminal code, rather than treating them as captured prisoners of war with protections and rights under the Geneva Convention.

The Australian government had repeatedly called on Russia to release Mr Jenkins, a former biology teacher at Melbourne Grammar School.

Russia-installed prosecutors said Mr Jenkins “took part in combat operations against Russian military personnel between March and December 2024”.

They posted a video showing him standing in a courtroom behind a glass cage, his hands behind his back and his expression despondent.

Russian forces captured Mr Jenkins in December 2024.

In that same month, he appeared in a video shared by a Russian military blogger showing him being roughly interrogated and slapped in the face.

He was then believed to have been killed in captivity, until Russia confirmed he was alive.

A later video showed him undergoing a medical examination, with his captors heard joking in the background that his blood pressure showed “he wasn’t dead”.

According to Mr Jenkins’ LinkedIn profile, from 2015 he worked as a language teacher in China before becoming a ­lecturer at the Tianjin Modern Vocational Technology College.

With AFP