”From my perspective, I know what Ukraine needs. It doesn’t need American troops or British troops here,” said a British man serving a military role in a foreign country on a contract.
“They need the political support… but they need to step it up a notch and help us defend ourselves from the air,” he said. No western political leader agreed with that and openly acknowledged that to commit identifiable air power to the Ukrainian theatre would be an undeniable declaration of war against Russia, which would radically escalate the situation from a territorially contained proxy war into open global conflict.
“Originally I always wanted to be a cop but then the whole ISIS thing happened,” he said, in reference to his choice to engage in armed conflict in a foreign country, as what the Daily Mail termed a “Soldier of Fortune” AKA mercenary, in an article whose headline appears to have been deliberately changed to drop the original term “Soldier of fortune”.
“I can either sit here, like everyone else, like, complain about everything, or I can actually go do something about it,” said the man. “For the newer guys who have just joined the military, they don’t realise the full scale of what might happen… If this thing with Russia does happen a lot of us will die or get seriously injured.”
Despite being a prisoner of the DPR, the man was allowed a phone to call the BBC. He spoke to a producer to ask for BBC help trying to arrange a prisoner transfer for him and another British man in order to avoid prosecution and its consequences. This phone call was filmed.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/1IsHRl9spOdj/
BBC Producer: “I’m really sorry because I’m not really the best person to talk to as I work for an international programme and not specifically about British news.”
According to that BBC producer, the Ukraine conflict and a story about a British “soldier of fortune” fighting in it is not international news. She must have studied geography with Liz Truss, who does not know the difference between Ukrainian and Russian territory (pre-invasion).
The BBC have not engaged in interviewing Aslin. The reasons why not appear to have escaped him.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bbc+aiden+aslin&t=brave&ia=web
While awaiting trial, the man was able to call other people and he invited Graham Philips to interview him. During that interview, the man freely said on video that he was a mercenary. He also said that he had made an error of judgement in going to Ukraine to fight for the Ukrainians, whom he then denounced. He said he had failed to understand what he was getting into and who he was acting as a mercenary for, despite earlier claiming to know what Ukraine needed and what the realities of war are. He also said that he believed that he should be able to redeem himself by performing some sort of penance by helping the people of DPR somehow.
After his conviction by the DPR and death sentence, the man was again able to use a phone to arrange another interview of his choice with John Mark Duggan.
Despite being a convicted criminal in the DPR, the man was able to film and release personal videos. In one particular video, he claimed that DPR legislation around the death penalty had not been fully implemented and may not be until 2025. Some comments below the video (unreferenced) suggest that he may be wrong about that and the death sentence can be executed. Time will tell.
He stated that in his opinion, the best way to redeem himself is to tell people about what he saw during his time in Ukraine. “I’ll be able to return to the West and basically tell people the truth because someone like me, people in the West believe, so I believe I can help redeem myself by telling people what I saw in Donbass and what I saw in Mariupol, in regards of the Ukrainian side and how they’ve lied for the past 8 years in regards to who shoots first and stuff like that… My prison in Donbass came under Ukrainian shelling… I hope I’ll be given the opportunity to redeem myself because I think this will be the best way to help the people of Donbass.”
The man had been under a contract with Ukrainian forces for approximately 4 years by the time the Russian Special Military Operation began, which begs the question of what he knew in that time that did not put him off being there. He now refers to the 8 years of Ukrainian lying etc, which raises questions of what he knew of the 4 years prior to his arrival, the reporting of which is a matter of record, detailed and stable enough up to that point and easily discoverable on the BBC and The Guardian. In his opinion, being set free and then being able to tell a story is “the best way to help the people of Donbass”. He does not explain how he comes to that conclusion, which is a direct contradiction of a statement he made in his Duggan interview of “I can’t speak for the people of the DNR [sic] and LPR”.
He also does not explain his assumption that people in the West will listen to or believe him, given that the UK Foreign Office is not intervening in his trial, sentence or treatment. Claims by Liz Truss, Foreign Secretary, that she would support UK mercenaries in Ukraine despite such acts being crimes in British law, which her office confirmed the day after she said it, do not seem to have manifested in actual support.
“I owe it to the people of Donbass, you know, when I surrendered, like, they could’ve easily just killed me then, erm, and I think, in a way, God gave me this opportunity to let me redeem myself. I know some people won’t be able to forgive me for what I’ve done but the best thing I can do is to give back to the people of the DPR and, basically, give them what they need.”
The man seemed to believe that despite being sat on DPR’s death row having been convicted, he was entitled to some form of forgiveness and release by the convicting authorities, who represent the people he himself admits he wronged. He asserts that he knows what those people need, despite being shown what their system wants in the form of his conviction, execution pending. He asserts that people in the West will listen to him, despite there being no interest from the BBC or other mainstream reporters. He is clearly free to contact Western media and has done, and he managed to get Graham Philips and John Mark Duggan, but no one else. So, it would appear that people, or specifically the media, are not interested in listening to him or broadcasting whatever it is that he now feels entitled to say, which appears to be an anti-war, anti-Ukraine message. Delivering such a message would, in the eyes of the West and of Ukraine, make him a Russian agent and Russian propagandist and a traitor to the West and Ukraine. By default, this blocks him from access to Western media and channels. In fact, he is by Western and Ukrainian definition, now peddling mis/disinformation, despite claiming to have a first hand perspective.
If he was unable to access publicly available information about the Ukrainian coup d’etat before he went to that theatre and, according to his own words, he needed to actually enter the DPR as a self-described mercenary before he realised that Ukraine was attacking civilian targets, why would people place value on his skills and abilities to judge and discern any forms of truth? What exactly is the basis for his claims of self-importance? Why does he believe he will get any form of media platform beyond what he already has? What does he evaluate as his value and propaganda value to anyone, anywhere? Why does he believe that God has given him an opportunity that has yet to materialise? He does not have an opportunity to return to the West and tell his story unless the DPR, not God, gives him that opportunity. Strangely, he overlooks the fact that if he is presently able to post videos on youtube about whatever he wants and seek interviews with anyone who will interview him, there’s nothing stopping him “redeeming himself” as of now, irrespective of returning to the West or being executed. Despite telling versions of a story about what he now thinks, none of this has been reported in the West on any major media channel. This would appear to totally undermine his assertions about himself and the interest in his story, as far as any media channel goes.
“I didn’t know about fire because I had chosen not to learn. I chose to listen to other people’s take on fire, but it turned out they were saying the wrong things. Even when I was near fire, I didn’t pay attention to the heat from it. But I finally realised, when I put by head into it, that it was hot and did burn things, and in hindsight I should’ve tried burning other things in it before I put my head in. But, now that I have, I think I am the man to tell the world that fire is hot and burns things, and that is the best way to redeem myself for the act of arson I committed in someone else’s country and have just been convicted of.”
Could this man’s value to the West and to Ukraine be the complete opposite of his own judgement of his own value? If he is executed, the West and Ukraine can cry foul of Russia and the DPR. If he is kept alive and keeps spouting anti-war rhetoric and makes claims of witnessing Ukrainian war crimes, his message has no value to the West and Ukraine.
In effect, he appears to be in no-man’s land, yet his actions and words do not appear to reflect awareness of that.
Postscript: this video interview is guaranteed to seal Aslin's fate. He is expressly stating that Ukraine is corrupt, had misled foreign contract fighters and the world about the entire conflict, is stealing and selling off provided foreign weapons and equipment, and attacking civilians.
https://rumble.com/v1cqril-bombshell-full-aiden-aslin-interview-at-donetsk-prison.-its-so-much-bigger-.html
The UK is never going to report on this information. It is never going to give this man a platform and it will never bring this man back to the UK.
What is the most bizarre thing is that he has not worked this out himself, which he could have done by simply reading UK news and UK government statements on its own actions in Ukraine.
Some might call this naivety, but I would not.
It is not naivety to choose to become part of a fighting force involved in its own civil war involving published civilian casualties and accessible reports of Nazism and crimes. Twice. Nor is it naive to choose not to access conflicting reports, which is a key aspect of education and intel gathering. There is no truth, only information which one must attempt to categorise and verify in order to be able to judge.
He even cites chatting to a Ukrainian girl online as part of his legitimate research into going to take part in a civil war that developed into a global proxy war.
“I've been betrayed by Ukraine for four years, what do I have to show for it?”
“They take care of prisoners here,” as opposed to shooting them in the legs, stabbing them in the eyes and filming the atrocities and posting them on the internet.
No one forced him to sing the Russian national anthem. He actually offered to do it. It was his idea and he brought up his own singing.
The British media have reported the complete opposite, claiming that he was forced to sing it.
Not only is Aslin's entire approach to his own external presentation bizarre, but it runs totally, obviously counter to the entire narrative of the nation he is trying to return to. It's not like he's in an information black hole. He has access to the internet and phones, but he doesn't seem to have worked out that he appears to be his own worst enemy. He has admitted in permanent video that he is a mercenary, meaning that neither the Ukrainian nor British government can override that. DPR's classification of him as a mercenary is therefore sound, as that's his own description of himself.
Every time he opens his mouth, he actively destroys any value he has as a prisoner. In order to have value to either side, he has to maintain value to his own government. Without that, he cannot ever be traded. That means that he, as a prisoner, is nothing but a cost/liability for nations that utterly despise mercenaries and who, in the case of the DPR, recently stated that it has lifted its moratorium on the death penalty and sees it as a powerful means of dissuasion to others. Russia makes public presentations of every strike on mercenary bases and targets.
At the end of this month, Aslin's and Pinner's appeals will be decided.
Ritter stated a long time ago that caught mercenaries faced death or life in a gulag. The only value these men have to DPR/Russia is the forcing of the West to communicate with and therefore recognise DPR, which it won't do.
Aslin is his own worst enemy, who never seemed to know who any enemy actually was, before he picked up weapons to kill foreigners with.
By his own words, he went to someone else's country to deliberately kill people and now he thinks he was killing the wrong people, but arrived at that conclusion only once the people he says he shouldn't have been killing bettered him in combat and, instead of killing him, took him captive and subjected him to the force of their laws.