From the editor
Vladimir Putin is following through on his threats to strike at the West with yesterday’s death sentences that were handed down by a kangaroo court in the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” for two British POWs and a Moroccan who had been fighting for Ukraine. The three men have been given 30 days to appeal before being put in front of a firing squad. Aiden Aslin, 28, is from Newark in Nottinghamshire and Shaun Pinner, 48, is from Watford on the outskirts of London. Saaudun Brahim is the Moroccan who was sentenced. They were captured during the battle for Mariupol, and no evidence that they had committed any war crimes was presented during the brief trial.
Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Sauudun Brahim during sentencing in eastern Ukraine
Aslin previously fought for the Kurdish YPG militia in Rojava, northern Syria, against the Islamic State terrorist group. British police investigated his activities in 2015 but let him go, and he returned for another tour with the YPG the following year. In 2018 he joined the Ukrainian regular military and subsequently became a Ukrainian citizen. Pinner moved to Ukraine several years ago with his wife and also joined the regular military, as opposed to the newly-formed “Foreign Legion” that has been fighting since the February invasion.
There is nothing new about Putin’s hostage-taking, and Americans Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner are currently being held in Russian prisons, but threatening the death penalty goes a significant step further. The Kremlin is particularly targeting the UK due to Boris Johnson’s keenness to supply arms to Ukraine. After the British prime minister narrowly won in a vote of no-confidence held by his own MPs on Monday, Moscow State University professor Andrei Sidorov said on Vladimir Soloviev’s talk show, “If Anglo-Saxons are lined up and shot for the first time, that will have a much more serious impact.” Soloviev responded that Johnson had deliberately timed the vote (over which he had no control) to be held while he still looked good, as opposed to after the POWs were executed.
In Ukraine Johnson is viewed as a saviour, with Volodymyr Zelensky saying of his vote win, “I’m glad we haven’t lost an important ally, this is great news.” The Kyiv Post tweeted a painting of an angelic-looking Johnson in Ukrainian costume playing a bandura yesterday, with the comment, “Meet #BorysChupryna, UK PM Boris Johnson’s name after officially becoming a #UkrainianCossack. Blessed by the Katerynynska Church’s Chernihivska Cossack Community, the certificate and the painting made by artists Darya Dobryakova and Yuriy Kutlyov will be sent to London.”
But Putin will be calculating that Johnson fails to cope with the pressure of the death sentences and offers concessions. British-Iranian hostage Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released in March after being held in Iran for six years. It is believed that the British government agreed to pay an old debt to Iran in order to free her. Zaghari-Ratcliffe blamed Johnson for worsening her ordeal and extending the amount of time she spent in prison and under house arrest because he wrongly claimed that she had been teaching journalism in Iran, when in fact she was on a visit to family. If Johnson sticks to his firm support for Ukraine he might have to watch the death sentences on the POWs being carried out.
Meanwhile Putin was comparing himself to Peter the Great on the 350th anniversary of the Westernising emperor’s birth yesterday, saying, “During the war with Sweden, Peter the Great didn’t conquer anything, he took back what had always belonged to us, even though all of Europe recognised it as Sweden’s. It seems now it’s our turn to get our lands back.” Speaking to a group of young people at the St. Petersburg international economic forum, he said unironically that all nations and peoples have the right to secure their sovereignty, or else they will become colonies.
There was also a painful contrast at the MH17 trial yesterday as Dutch defence lawyers spoke all day about how unfair the proceedings had been on their client, Oleg Pulatov, who has not attended throughout the two years of meticulous examination of the evidence. They claimed he had not been afforded the presumption of innocence and put forward an array of alternative theories about the shooting down of the plane in July 2014, including that Ukrainians themselves could have fired the Buk missile. Even if the four defendants had been present in court, they would not have been facing a potential death penalty for the murder of 298 civilians. Putin’s idea of a justice system in his “empire” is a joke, of course, but a very sick one.
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Moscow’s chief rabbi leaves Russia
The daughter-in-law of Moscow’s chief rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt, has announced that he and his wife left Russia two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine because they came under pressure to support the war and refused. Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt tweeted on Tuesday, “They are now in exile from the community they loved, built & raised their children in, over 33 years – though he was re-elected today by the MEPO community.” Goldschmidt had been chief rabbi since 1993 and has now been re-elected for another seven-year term.
Priest jailed, artist sent for psychiatric treatment
In St. Petersburg an Orthodox priest, Ioann Kurmoyarov, has been sent to jail to await trial on a charge of spreading “fakes” about the Russian army, after he made a video in which he said that Russian troops killed in Ukraine would not go to heaven. “The blessed peacemakers will go to heaven, you understand the problem, the peacemakers?” he said. “Those who launch aggression won’t be in heaven.” Investigators employed linguists to analyse the video, who said that it contained lies about Russian troops. Police confiscated computer equipment, two icons, a wooden cross and a cassock from Kurmoyarov during a search when he was arrested. In 2020 Kurmoyarov was temporarily banned from conducted services after he criticised the new Main Cathedral of the Armed Forces, calling it an example of how Orthodoxy was turning into “banal paganism”.
Meanwhile jailed St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko, who is awaiting trial for “discrediting the Russian army” after putting information about the war on price tags in supermarkets, has been sent to a psychiatric hospital for forced treatment. She is expected to be held there for about three weeks.
One of Litvinenko’s poisoners dies
Dmitri Kovtun, who together with current Russian MP Andrei Lugovoi is believed to have poisoned Alexander Litvinenko with polonium in London in 2006, has died of Covid in Moscow at the age of 56. Litvinenko died an agonising death after drinking the radioactive substance in tea during a meeting in a hotel with Kovtun and Lugovoi. When British police went to talk to the two suspects in Moscow after the murder they were being treated in hospital themselves. Lugovoi commented on the death of Kovtun, “My close and true friend Dmitri Kovtun died prematurely. For us this is an irreplaceable and difficult loss.” In January 2016 a report on Litvinenko’s murder by Sir Robert Owen following his inquiry said that Putin probably approved the operation. Litvinenko was an exiled former FSB officer who became a prominent critic of the Russian leader.