LONDON, April 19. /TASS/. The final decision on the exchange of British citizens Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin, who served in the armed forces of Ukraine and were captured in Mariupol, for the Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk rests with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Lord Peter Ricketts, former diplomat, member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament, who served as National Security Adviser to the UK Prime Minister from 2010 to 2012, said this in an interview with Sky News on Monday.
"[This] created a really difficult problem for the government and I'm sure these two men went with the very best of intentions, they were going to try to help Ukrainians, I'm sure, but I remember the government were advising British citizens very strongly not to go to Ukraine to fight and they made clear that if they got into trouble there'll be nothing the British government can do to help them and here we are now," Lord Ricketts said.
"They handed the Russians a big propaganda opportunity, they were clearly speaking under coercion as far as I could see and now there is a dilemma about what to do. Mister Medvedchuk is held by the Ukrainians, so it will be up to president Zelensky to decide what to do in terms of releasing him," Ricketts said adding that "there are discussions underway."
In January, the Sky News channel reported that Pinner and Aslin had served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the last 3-4 years, voluntarily joining the Marine Corps. Pinner, 48, is married to a Ukrainian woman and lived in Mariupol. Earlier he served within the British Army as a member of the Royal Anglian Regiment. He served in tours including with the United Nations in Bosnia.
On April 12, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky announced that Medvedchuk had been detained and posted pictures of a man who looked like him in handcuffs. At the same time, Zelensky made a proposal to exchange the politician for Ukrainian prisoners of war. Late last week, Medvedchuk's wife Oksana Marchenko appealed to the relatives and friends of the British captives to ask British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to exchange them for her husband. ".