MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. The UK leadership refused to assist in releasing British mercenaries captured in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Sputnik radio station on Wednesday.

"[The UK leadership] with unseen ease rejects the citizens of its country that are being captured, found there. I mean, Ukraine and the British citizens," she noted. "This is fantastic indeed! Being involved in the discussion of human rights, endlessly making statements over various humanitarian situations worldwide, they literally in one second turned away from their citizens, said it was their private affair and let them get out of it any way they can," the diplomat explained.

Earlier, the official representative of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in response to a question about the fate of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner who served in the Ukrainian army and were captured in Mariupol emphasized that the UK government would provide every possible support on this issue without specifying what it might be. Pinner addressed Johnson on the Russia-1 TV channel, asking to exchange him and Aslin for Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk.

On April 12, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced that Medvedchuk had been detained and posted pictures of him in handcuffs. At the same time, Zelensky made a proposal to exchange the politician for Ukrainian prisoners of war. At the end of last week, Medvedchuk’s wife addressed the friends and relatives of the captured Britons to ask Johnson to exchange them for her husband.