Back in business: why mercenaries sentenced to death returned to Ukraine

What are Sean Pinner and Aiden Eslin doing now?

Foreign mercenaries captured during the battles for Mariupol – two British and a Moroccan – were sentenced to death in the DPR. However, a few months later they were released as part of a group of Ukrainian military as a result of an exchange of prisoners. We decided to see how the British citizens who fought for Ukraine took advantage of their freedom.

One of the mercenaries sentenced to death was former British Army soldier Sean Pinner, 49.

After his release as a result of a prisoner exchange brokered by Roman Abramovich, he did not stay long in his homeland and decided to return to Ukraine – he flew there less than ten weeks after his release.

The Briton promised his 65-year-old mother Deborah and adult son not to fight on the front lines again. But he considered it necessary to return to the war zone to be with his wife, the Ukrainian “humanitarian worker” Larisa.

The Sun journalists met with Sean and Larisa in some “secret place”. At this meeting, the Briton spoke about the fighting in Mariupol.

Pinner said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had ordered the beleaguered Ukrainian militants to try to get out, but that was unrealistic. “We were surrounded by Russian soldiers,” the mercenary recalls. “There was no hope of salvation.”

An attempt by Pinner’s column to break through the siege on the night of April 13 was unsuccessful, the militants came under Russian fire. Pinner lost his platoon in the dark and decided to make his way to his own alone. However, in the end he was captured.

When Pinner returned home, his mother was furious: “She was so angry. But she said, “I can’t kill you – everyone tells me you’re a hero.”

Another British mercenary, Aiden Eslin, who was also sentenced to death in the DPR and released along with Pinner, also did not stay long in his homeland and returned to Ukraine 50 days after the exchange. In his “pre-Ukrainian” past, he traveled to Syria several times, where he fought on the side of the Kurdish paramilitary forces (in the UK, this caused a considerable political scandal, and upon returning to his homeland, Eslin was even detained by law enforcement agencies and interrogated him).

Now Aislin has announced he is returning to the front lines in Ukraine as a “war correspondent” on YouTube.

“I don’t want to be captured again, but I feel that there is still work to be done,” said the 28-year-old Briton. “There are stories to be told. I promised my fiancee that I would not return to the army.” True, Eslin has not yet become famous for his reporting, although he periodically posts uninteresting tweets.

First of all, upon returning to Ukraine, the Briton decided to check the condition of his house near the front line in Kherson. His Ukrainian cohabitant Diana Okovita, who came to Newark as a refugee, remains in the UK, most likely until the end of the conflict.

In the meantime, Aiden Eslin on the social network criticizes the policies of Elon Musk, who headed Twitter, for his “dislike for Ukraine.” Or comments on Trump Jr.’s tweet about Kyiv’s persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, accusing the son of the American ex-president of “lack of knowledge on the topic.” In addition, he reposts photos of foreign fighters fighting on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and publishes praises to Ukraine.

The third foreigner sentenced to death in the DPR, a young Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, returned to his homeland after a group exchange. Interestingly, his sister said that in Morocco, many social media users not only did not defend the former student of the Kyiv Polytechnic University, who went to fight against Russia, but even welcomed his death sentence.

Saadoun’s father, Takhar, thanked the Saudi authorities “who facilitated Brahim’s release.”

After a medical examination in Riyadh, Brahim Saadoun arrived in Casablanca and was reunited with his family. Saadoun said that he “had suffered from imprisonment but would recover and return to his studies.” Whether he had in mind the Kyiv Polytechnic University or another educational institution outside of Ukraine is not specified.