Exclusive: friend of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner says UK minister’s claim they were in Ukraine illegally is ‘completely false’
- Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
Chris Garrett recalled his last conversation with the British fighter Aiden Aslin. Aslin was holed up in Mariupol and surrounded by Russian forces. He had run out of food and ammunition. It seemed unlikely he would get out of the city alive. “We spoke on the phone. Aiden told me: ‘I think we are going to have to surrender,’” Garrett said.
Two days later, Aslin and his fellow British fighter Shaun Pinner negotiated with a Russian commander. They emerged from the ghostly, shattered ruins of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters continue to hold out in underground tunnels. Both are now prisoners of war in Donetsk, the eastern Ukrainian city run by pro-Moscow separatists since 2014.
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