Ukraine-Russia war: Brits fighting for Russia in Ukraine branded an ‘absolute disgrace’
A former British Army Colonel has demanded two British men fighting for Russia in Ukraine be brought back to the UK and jailed. Warning: Graphic. Follow updates.
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Two British men have been branded an “absolute disgrace” for fighting for Russia against Ukraine.
A former British Army Colonel has demanded the pair be jailed – and they could face prison time if they ever return to the UK, The Sun reported.
Ben Stimson, 48, has shared videos online from the frontline where Ukrainian soldiers are fighting the Russian army.
Flaunting his Russian military gear in one video, Stimson waves the Kremlin’s flag and says: “Yes, yes, I’m back in Russia. I’m back in uniform.”
Stimson also holds up an unexploded grenade, taken from a captured Ukrainian stockpile, taunting that he’s holding “British taxpayer returns”.
In one he says: “Every man takes his choice … a lot of us, the foreign volunteers, have chosen to come over to this side, to the Russian side.”
Stimson’s father disowned his “embarrassment” of a son.
Stimson, who has previously been convicted for terrorism after helping pro-Russian separatists, is not the only Brit fighting for Russia.
His “best British friend in the Russian army” is convicted felon Aiden Minnis.
A former National Front member who was jailed for a racist attack, he told the Mirror he is also now a “sapper in the Russian army”.
Minnis and Stimson are the first known Britons to make the choice to fight for Russia.
But many others from the UK have made the decision to fight for the Ukrainian side – which the British government is supporting with billions of pounds worth of arms, ammunition and training.
And some have died at the hands of Russia’s army, while others were captured and tortured for days on end.
Speaking about Minnis and Stimson, former British Army commander Colonel Richard Kemp said: “These two are an absolute disgrace and are traitors who, upon their return to the UK, should be arrested and jailed.”
He added: “These two traitors clearly don’t know who the enemy is.”
In a post, Stimson shared footage from the frontline of troops ploughing over mud, past dead bodies and landmines before digging up a hand grenade.
The pair have also shared pictures from Donetsk on Russian social media brandishing heavy-duty weapons and wearing Russian uniforms.
Stimson told friends he was going to eastern Ukraine to drive an ambulance, but later said he had become a “soldier of the new Russia” after being brainwashed by propaganda online.
He even said he was prepared to kill brave Ukrainians on the frontline as “an act of war”.
Police arrested him as he arrived back home and was jailed for over five years and four months for terror offences in 2017.
But after being released, he fled back to occupied Donetsk via Moscow to re-join Russian forces in February, brazenly flaunting his efforts for Vladimir Putin’s army online.
The convicted criminal even flogged his last possessions to fund the visa and flight.
Before leaving he posted: “I’m ready to go now, bags packed. I just hope the British police don’t arrest me and make something up or twist things to incriminate me on something that does not exist.”
When he arrived at Manchester Airport police again detained him and questioned him under the Terrorism Act.
But Stimson was still allowed to fly to Moscow.
While police confiscated his phone and laptop, Stimson posted a picture of two USB drives with the caption: “Didn’t find these did you? You stupid thick b******s.”
Stimson’s father, Martin, 76, a former town councillor, said he supported his son during a 2017 court hearing, but has now completely “cut him off”.
The shame of watching his son fight for Russia was too much.
“I’ve cut him off. Before I cut him off he was in Moscow,” he said.
“I’ve been looking after Ben on and off for years and years. He’s on his own now. He’s 48 now, he can do what he wants.
“He’s been a constant worry. I want a bit of peace at my age. You never know what he’ll do next.”
Minnis, from Ireland, described his choice to join the Russian army as “an ideological thing”.
A former drug addict with a lengthy criminal history, he was jailed in 2008 for an unprovoked racist attack on a rugby player. Earlier in the year, he assaulted a homeless man.
His lawyer told a British court: “He was a member of the National Front, a class A drug addict and an alcoholic by the age of 20”.
Minnis dubbed himself a “Z Patriot” and thinks Mr Putin is “still the greatest politician on earth”.
Both British mercenaries are likely to face jail if they ever return to the UK, and Stimson’s temporary visa expires in mid May.
He is based in the Pyatnashka brigade, an international militia that fights Ukrainian soldiers with Russia in Donetsk.
The Foreign Enlistment Act makes it illegal for Brits to join armies in countries who are in conflict with Britain.
CONCERT DEATH TOLL GROWS
The death toll from a terror attack on a Moscow concert hall has risen to 139 and is expected to increase again as rescuers continue to search the site for remains, according to Russian authorities.
Another 97 people remain in hospital after camouflaged gunmen stormed the Moscow
on Friday night, firing on concertgoers with automatic weapons before setting fire to the venue trapping many inside, investigators said. More than 5000 people gathered at the venue in Krasnogorsk on the outskirts of Moscow to watch the rock group Piknik perform when the attack began at around 8.15pm before the start of the concert.
The emergency situations ministry said fire services helped about 100 people escape through the basement of the concert hall, while rescue operations were launched to reach those on the roof.
TASS news agency said that all of the Piknik group had been evacuated safely.
Russian social media channels close to the security services showed videos of at least two men walking into the hall.
Others showed bodies and groups of screaming people rushing towards exits.
Scores of people hid in the hall or rushed towards entrances to the basement or roof to escape the bullets.
PUTIN INSINUATES UKRAINE BEHIND MOSCOW ATTACK
Despite extremist group Islamic State (IS) claiming responsibility for the Moscow attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin has insinuated a link to Ukraine.
“The US … is trying to convince its satellites that there is not a Kyiv trace in the act of terror and that members of ISIS carried out the attack,” Mr Putin told a security meeting.
While he acknowledged “radical Islamists” had carried out the attack, the president also made a link with Ukraine, with which Russia is currently engaged in a war.
“We know who carried out the attack. We want to know who the mastermind was,” said Mr Putin, repeating the allegation that the perpetrators tried to flee to Ukraine after the attack.
Ukraine has already vehemently denied any involvement in the attack, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying Mr Putin was always seeking to blame “someone else”.
The United States had warned Russia in early March of a possible attack, but Moscow does not appear to have listened.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Moscow against any “exploitation” of the attack, saying it was a branch of IS that “planned the attack and carried it out”, adding this outfit had also plotted attacks in France.
“There is an exploitation (of the attack) because Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine,” Sylvie Bermann, former ambassador of France to Russia, told AFP.
“It is in his logic of the war in Ukraine and the Ukrainians are responsible for everything.”
RUSSIA’S GRUESOME TORTURE TACTICS
Gruesome images purport to show Russian forces torturing Islamic State terror suspects arrested over a Moscow concert hall massacre.
A shocking picture shows a man being given what appears to be electric shocks to his genitalia, while another man can be seen with his ear cut off.
A man identified as Shamsidin Fariduni is shown in a deeply disturbing photograph on a floor with his trousers pulled down and wires evidently attached to his groin area. (This publication has chosen not to share the images).
The wires appear to be from a TA-57 military field telephone capable of discharging up to 80 volts, used to torture by electrocution.
In a separate incident captured on camera, one of the suspect’s ears was cut off with a knife when he was detained in Bryansk region on Sunday.
A Telegram channel linked to Wagner paramilitary forces said the picture shows how “an ordinary interrogation takes place using a military field telephone TA-57, in common parlance ‘Tapik’.
“By turning the coil … discharges are released through the wires … up to 80 volts, which in turn are connected to the prisoner by the fingers, ears or genitalia …
“For best effect, the captured militant should be poured with water.”
It appears that the barbaric treatment of suspects of heinous crimes is being deliberately leaked.
Fariduni was seen on his knees after being detained in the Bryansk region on Saturday.
Exiled Russian journalist Dmirty Kolezev said: “The Russian security forces are leaking photos showing that detained terrorist attack suspects are being tortured with electric shocks by tying wires to their genitalia.
“Torture is, unfortunately, commonplace. What is unusual here is that the security forces used to bashfully hide this.
“But now they are proud of it and, apparently, they themselves release photographs of torture to friendly Telegram channels.”
Fariduni was one of four ISIS terror suspects accused of killing 137 in Moscow to have been hauled into court covered in cuts and bruises.
Four men accused of opening fire on crowds were forced into a courtroom on Sunday bloodied and bruised.
Images from a Moscow district court showed one of the suspects sitting in the defendant’s cage with a bandage over his severed ear.
Courtroom pictures published by Russian media also showed another suspect brought in on a wheelchair apparently missing an eye.
Another had a black eye and a ripped plastic bag around his neck, and a fourth suspect with a swollen face seemed disoriented and struggling to keep his eyes open.
Moscow’s Basmanny district court on Sunday charged the four suspects with acts of terrorism in connection with the attack, naming them as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Muhammadsobir Fayzov.
It said the men, identified by Russian media as all being citizens of the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan living in Russia, would be remanded in pre-trial custody until May 22.
So far 11 people have been detained, including the four suspected gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340km southwest of Moscow.
The Kremlin on Monday declined to comment on whether four suspects in last week’s Moscow concert hall attack had been subjected to mistreatment after being taken into custody.
“I will leave this question unanswered,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a daily press briefing, following reports and videos on Russian social media of bloody interrogations after the men were arrested.
HYPERSONIC MISSILE ATTACK ON KYIV WOUNDS SEVEN
Kyiv’s mayor said seven people including a teenage girl have been wounded after Ukrainian air defence systems downed two Russian ballistic missiles over the capital, sending metal debris crashing to the ground.
AFP journalists saw emergency workers in helmets clearing concrete and bent metal from one building ripped open during the attack – the third aerial bombardment of the capital in just five days.
Moscow has escalated its aerial attacks on Kyiv, targeting key infrastructure in the wake of fatal Ukrainian bombardments on Russian border regions.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack showed again that Ukraine needs better air defence systems from its allies.
“It means safety for our cities and saved human lives. All of us in the world who respect and protect life need to stop this terror,” he wrote on social media.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on social media that seven people were wounded, including the teenage girl and two pregnant women with acute stress reactions.
“Two of them were hospitalised. The rest were treated at the scene. Rescuers continue to clear the rubble,” he wrote on social media.
I am grateful to Ukraine's State Emergency Service rescuers, police, utility workers, and all other services involved in rescue and recovery following Russia's attack on Kyiv this morning.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир ЗеленÑький (@ZelenskyyUa) March 25, 2024
Russian terrorists launched ballistic missiles at Kyiv. Unfortunately, houses in a… pic.twitter.com/XFvvR4qQL2
The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Sergiy Popko, said Russia had attacked with two ballistic missiles launched from the annexed Crimean peninsula.
He said both missiles had been shot down but falling debris crashed onto several central districts. Officials said an arts academy building and a gym were damaged.
“Explosions in Kyiv. Go to shelters immediately,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on social media, adding in a later post that emergency services had been dispatched to three districts of the capital.
The head of Kyiv’s military administration said a Russian missile had damaged a residential building in the Pechersky district and details were being confirmed.
FRANCE RAISES TERROR ALERT TO HIGHEST LEVEL
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has announced that the country was raising its security alert to the highest level after the Moscow concert hall attack.
“Given the claim of responsibility for the attack by the Islamic State and the threats weighing on our country, we have decided to raise the Vigipirate state to its highest level: emergency attack,” said Mr Attal, raising the level again just three months after it was lowered in January.
A total of 137 people were killed and 180 others injured by armed gunmen at the Crocus City Hall in a suburb on the northern edge of Moscow on Friday, with the Islamic State (ISIS) group claiming responsibility for the attack.
Russian authorities have not yet blamed the group, but president Vladimir Putin has said the attackers were apprehended while “travelling towards Ukraine where, according to preliminary information, they had a window to cross the border”.
Russia’s FSB security service said earlier that the assailants had been “in contact” with people in Ukraine as they tried to flee the country.
Ukraine had “no involvement whatsoever” in the massacre, the White House said Sunday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested a Kyiv connection.
Kyiv has strongly denied any connection, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accusing Mr Putin of trying to shift the blame onto them.
UK Finance minister Jeremy Hunt said Britain has “very little confidence” in Russia’s statements on the terror attack, accusing it of trying to “defend” it’s assault on Ukraine.
He told Sky News, “I take what the Russian government says with an enormous pinch of salt … after what we’ve seen from them over the last few years.
“We know that they are creating a smokescreen of propaganda to defend an utterly evil invasion of Ukraine.
“But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a tragedy when innocent people lose their lives, when you have horrible bombings,” he added.
The minister warned that the UK and other European countries should “absolutely” be concerned about the re-emergence of ISIS on the world stage.
“If it is Islamic State, they’re utterly indiscriminate in what they do, they’re prepared to murder in the most horrific way.”
TERROR SUSPECTS FRONT COURT
The first two suspects in the deadly Moscow concert hall attack appeared in a Russian court late Sunday local time to face terrorism charges, state news agencies reported.
The suspects, identified as Saidakrami Murodalii Rachabalizoda and Dalerdjon Barotovich Mirzoyev, face charges of a “terror attack committed by a group of individuals resulting in a person’s death”, according to TASS.
The court released a video showing police officers bringing one of the suspects into the courtroom in handcuffs, as well as photographs of the same man sitting in a glass cage for defendants.
Authorities said the suspects were foreign nationals.
According to Russian media and parliament member Alexander Khinstein, some of the suspects are from Tajikistan, a majority-Muslim former Soviet republic that borders Afghanistan.
CALL TO BRING BACK RUSSIA’S DEATH PENALTY
Several senior members of Mr Putin’s regime have called for the country to bring back the death penalty following Friday’s attack on a Moscow concert hall.
Critics have sounded the alarm over the demand, including due to Russia’s broad use of counter-terrorism and anti-extremist laws to target Kremlin opponents and supporters of Ukraine.
Russia has had a moratorium on capital punishment since the 1990s but calls are growing in the Putin camp to lift it in the wake of the deadliest attack in the country for two decades.
Critics have voiced alarm over the plans because of Russia’s broad use of counter-terrorism and anti-extremist laws, which have been used to target Kremlin opponents and supporters of Ukraine.
Authorities opened a record 143 “terror”-related criminal cases in 2023, according to the independent Mediazona news site – up from fewer than 20 a year prior to 2018.
Earlier this month, Russia’s financial monitoring watchdog added the “international LGBT movement” to its “terrorists and extremists” blacklist.
PUTIN ACCUSED OF VIOLATING POLAND’S AIRSPACE
Ukraine’s ally and neighbour Poland said a Russian cruise missile headed for western Ukraine breached its airspace overnight, after it had put its armed forces on high alert amid intense Russian aviation activity.
Poland’s army said that one of the Russian missiles fired at western Ukraine had entered its airspace.
“Polish airspace was breached by one of the cruise missiles fired in the night by the air forces … of the Russian Federation,” the army posted on X on Sunday.
“The object flew through Polish airspace above the village of Oserdow (Lublin province) and stayed for 39 seconds,” it said.
The country’s Armed Forces Operational Command (RSZ) had said earlier that its forces were on a heightened state of readiness because of the “intensive long-range aviation activity of the Russian Federation tonight” and the missile attacks in Ukraine.
Poland, which has been a staunch ally of its neighbour Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, said Sunday that it would demand an explanation from Moscow.
UKRAINE STRIKES AT RUSSIA’S BLACK SEA FLEET
Ukraine claimed to have hit two Russian military ships stationed at the annexed peninsula of Crimea in overnight strikes, as it suffered another night of “massive” Russian aerial attacks.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces successfully struck the amphibious landing ships Yamal and Azov, a communications centre, and a number of the Black Sea Fleet’s infrastructure sites,” the Ukrainian armed forces’ strategic communications centre said Sunday.
Moscow-installed officials on the peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014, said their forces had repelled a major Ukrainian aerial attack late Saturday night.
Yesterday evening, Ukraine used Storm Shadows missiles in Russian-occupied Sevastopol #CrimeaIsUkrainepic.twitter.com/EmnzZppTt1
— TOGA (@TOGAjano21) March 24, 2024
“It was the most massive attack in recent times,” the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said in a Telegram post.
He said a 65-year-old man was killed and four people injured. He did not mention any damage to Russian war ships.
Footage shared on social media showed a large blast in the city, sending a fireball and plume of black smoke into the air, as well as what appeared to be Russian air defences intercepting incoming projectiles.
Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed around a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the start of the war, usually in attacks at night using sea-based drones packed with explosives.
Satellite images show Russia has moved much of the fleet further east, to the port of Novorossiysk, amid the spate of attacks.
GOAL OF ‘DESTROYING KYIV’
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the western region of Lviv also came under a “massive” Russian air attack early Sunday, officials said, though no casualties were reported.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 29 cruise missiles and 28 drones at its territory overnight.
It said it had downed 18 of the missiles and 25 drones.
Russia has significantly escalated its air attacks against Ukraine in recent days, in what it says is retaliation for a wave of Ukrainian strikes on its border regions.
In the early hours of Friday, Moscow launched its largest aerial barrages against Ukraine’s energy sector since the start of the war, firing almost 90 missiles and 60 drones.
Russia has also resumed targeting Kyiv, carrying out its first strikes at the city since early February.
Russia “does not give up its goal of destroying Kyiv at any cost,” Sergiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration, said on Telegram.
US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink also noted the increased frequency of recent attacks.
“Russia continues to indiscriminately launch drones and missiles with no regard for millions of civilians, violating international law,” Brink wrote on X.
– with AFP
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Originally published as Ukraine-Russia war: Brits fighting for Russia in Ukraine branded an ‘absolute disgrace’
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