Shaun Pinner: British prisoner of war recalls how he was tortured in Ukraine while held captive by Russian forces
A British national captured by Russian forces while fighting alongside Ukrainian troops has recalled how he was tortured and left unable to walk during his ordeal.
Shaun Pinner was among five Britons released from Russian detention in Ukraine in a prisoner swap last September.
Appearing on this week’s Beth Rigby Interviews, the former soldier also called for Ukraine to receive fighter jets as part of “continued support” to stop Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Shaun Pinner
And he warned the Russian president: “One day, you’ll be found out.”
Mr Pinner, from Bedfordshire, says he was serving with regular military units in Mariupol before he was detained in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine.
Recalling how his captives gave him electric shocks, he told Rigby: “You feel like your muscles are popping out of you, your body.
“And the next day, my legs inflated very badly. The blood was kind of capillaries were leaking blood from my legs.
“When I took my thermal off I was just bleeding from my leg from the electric shock, and my legs had inflated so I couldn’t walk.”
The prisoner of war told how one man cut off his clothing to see if he had any right-wing tattoos, before stabbing him in the leg.
“He just went ‘Oh’ and I was just bleeding everywhere, all over my legs.
“I was screaming … and then I had 200 volts go through me on the chair, control my leg, and I was literally standing up and he electrocuted me in there.
“I didn’t really ask any questions.”
Mr Pinner appearing on Sky News Beth Rigby Interviews programme
‘I was petrified’
Speaking about what he witnessed while fighting in Ukraine, ahead of the first anniversary of the invasion on Friday, Mr Pinner told Rigby: “The bombing goes all the way back from the front lines to Mariupol.
“I saw a school, with the kids’ coats hanging up … where they’ve been evacuated and put in a cellar, and they just hit the school, didn’t care about it.
“They were hitting any government building they could target.”
He and his team nicknamed the sound of the bombing “Phil Collins” – adding: “De dom de dom de dom. You know, it sounds just like that beat as it comes in – very slow, it builds up and then it was bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, very intense.”
Recalling the moment the Russians came over the border during the initial invasion of Ukraine, Mr Pinner said: “Your adrenaline is going. You’re nervous, you’re scared.
“You know people that say they aren’t scared. I was petrified. You know, it’s Russia.”
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Britons released in prisoner swap arrive in UK
He also called on Britain to give Ukraine the fighter jets requested by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“They need continued support,” Mr Pinner told Rigby.
“If you ask the foreign fighters over there, they just want to support.”
He conceded it is difficult to train people to use fighter jets but added: “That’s not my part, I just want fighter jets.”
And Mr Pinner vowed Ukraine should not yet engage in peace talks with Putin.
“One of the things I say to people is, how much of America or Norway or Britain would you be willing to lose to talk peace?
“I doubt America would give up an inch, especially Britain wouldn’t.
“So, you know, Ukraine is exactly the same.
“If we give an inch now, they will come back in three years, five years, push a bit more – like they’ve done with Crimea.”
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The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
More from Sky News:
Trump doubles down on Putin criticism
Why Russian troops are gathering near ‘fortress city’
In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
Israel-Gaza latest: Netanyahu reportedly accepts US ceasefire plan
Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
Read more:
Gaza doctor’s nine children killed
How the new Gaza aid rollout collapsed
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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