Two Britons who nearly died fighting in Ukraine reveal why they have returned to war zone – and issue warning about Russia
Two Britons who nearly died fighting in Ukraine have told why they have returned to the war-torn country – and warn urgent help is needed on the frontline in the battle against Russia.
Shareef Amin was seriously wounded by Russian fire after answering President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for foreigners to join the Ukrainian military in 2022.
The 41-year-old from Bristol lost part of his hand and his right leg was paralysed from the knee down. He also suffered punctured lungs and severe injuries to his shoulder and forearm.
Recovering in hospital after he was ambushed. Pic: Shareef Amin
Fellow Briton Shaun Pinner was captured and tortured by Russian forces after fighting alongside Ukrainian troops in 2022.
The 50-year-old from Hertfordshire was imprisoned for five months – during which time he said he was “electrocuted, starved, beaten… and stabbed” – before he was released in a prisoner swap.
Speaking just before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr Amin and Mr Pinner told Sky News there is no prospect of an end to the war anytime soon – and fear Vladimir Putin will be free to invade more of Europe if urgent help isn’t sent.
“We need support – from Britain, America, Europe – whether it’s bombs, helmets, body armour, or medical equipment, there isn’t enough,” Mr Amin says.
“This is a really dangerous situation. If Russia gets the upper hand and they take Ukraine, they’re not going to stop at that.
“The British and the Europeans need to know this is all of our wars.”
Ukraine war:
Follow the latest updates
Pic: Shareef Amin (left)
Mr Pinner says Ukraine is “probably a year off being able to produce enough shells to be able to support” itself.
“We’re going to go through a really tough time before then,” he adds.
“I’ve never lost faith that Ukraine can win. But we’ve got ammo shortages on the frontline that are a real worry. How can you fight with one hand tied behind your back?”
Pic: Shaun Pinner
‘Chaotic’ first months in Ukraine
Mr Amin – who spent 13 years in the British military – says he travelled to Ukraine to join the fight against Russia in March 2022 after watching a speech by President Zelenskyy on Instagram.
“I managed to get hold of a group of British guys through WhatsApp and TikTok, and by 11 March we were in Lviv,” he says.
He described his first two months in the country as “chaotic” as he and others felt there wasn’t enough time to go to the British embassy and join the foreign legion through official channels.
“We almost got arrested three times at gunpoint, because we weren’t there under official paperwork – we just had passports, uniforms, and military kit,” he says.
Mr Amin says he initially decided to do some humanitarian work instead, delivering medical supplies around the country, until he was asked to teach one of the territorial units in Western tactics.
By mid-2022, Mr Amin was on the frontline but left after a few months to sign up officially to the Ukrainian military.
He went in search of more specialised work and joined the Main Directorate of Intelligence Unit (GUR) with some fellow Britons.
Pic: Shareef Amin (left)
‘All of a sudden, there was this explosion’
On the frontline in November 2022, Mr Amin’s team was ambushed.
After his team found itself in a line of trees, beyond which there was nothing but flat land, “three or four tanks” emerged and began shooting – followed by artillery, drones and laser-guided missiles, he says.
He and other members of his team were hit. Some of them were killed.
“All of a sudden, there was this explosion,” he recalls.
“The air got sucked out of my lungs and all I could see was a flash of light and it felt like I was pulled underground like an empty can.”
Pic: Shareef Amin
‘He’s not going to make it’
Mr Amin says he was hit by a round of fire that had gone underground before exploding and ricocheting back up through his body armour.
When he eventually got to an ambulance and was taken to hospital, he heard a doctor say “he’s not going to make it” – but he survived despite more than 20 pieces of metal being pulled out of his back.
He spent six weeks in a hospital in Odesa, hoping to recover and quickly return to the frontline.
But he says: “You don’t really come to the realisation your body is destroyed.”
In December 2022, he was flown to the UK for further treatment – but went back to Ukraine in the summer of 2023.
He says he is working with intelligence units there and helping with medical evacuations on the frontline.
“Psychologically, I had to have that purpose again,” Mr Amin says.
“The idea of actually going home and giving up was a no-go.
“I’ve had my ups and downs, but the idea of coming back and still being able to wear the uniform has kept me sane.”
‘You can’t train for pain of torture and starvation’
Mr Pinner was already in Ukraine when Russia invaded on 24 February 2022.
Having spent nine years in the British Army, he had been living with his fiancée in Mariupol since 2018 and was serving in the Ukrainian military.
“I was on a routine deployment when the full-scale invasion happened,” he recalls.
Shaun Pinner (right) and fellow Briton Aiden Aslin (left). Pic: Shaun Pinner
Mr Pinner says he was the first foreigner to become a commander on the frontline as he spoke Russian and had previous military experience.
But in April 2022, he and four other British soldiers were captured and taken prisoner.
He was “electrocuted, starved, beaten, tortured, stabbed in the leg,” he tells Sky News, before being put on a show trial and sentenced to death in Russia’s self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk.
“I wasn’t expecting the brutality of it,” he says.
“You can’t train for pain. The worst torture was starvation… thinking about food – it’s with you every day, it’s still with me now.”
Shaun Pinner in captivity in Donetsk. Pic: Reuters
‘If I got executed, I was dying for a cause’
Mr Pinner says that the Russian he learned as a resident of Mariupol helped him to decipher what was going on during his captivity.
Reflecting on challenges he’d faced outside the military – such as relatives dying, and previous relationship breakdowns – helped keep things in perspective, he adds.
“I was never as low as that when I was in captivity, because I knew if I did get executed, I was dying for a cause,” Mr Pinner says.
He and the other four Britons were unexpectedly freed as part of a prisoner exchange in September 2022.
He was reunited with his family in the UK before returning to Ukraine to live with his wife the following month.
Pictured with his family in the UK in 2022. Pic: Shaun Pinner
‘I don’t talk to Westerners who’ve just turned up’
Mr Pinner admits being “nervous coming across the border” for the first time after he was freed.
But he says: “My life has changed now. I’m not fighting but I’m helping in another capacity.
“I try to talk about what it’s actually like to live here – and what it was like before the invasion.
“I try to dispel Putin’s narratives on social media because I’m now in a position where I can say, ‘actually that’s not correct, because I’m here and I know’.”
Speaking from Dnipro, where he warns an air raid siren might interrupt the call, he says he discourages any foreigners he speaks to who say they want to come and fight.
“There are some good guys here,” he says. “But they’ve either been here a long time or they’re married to Ukrainians.”
He adds: “I don’t talk to Westerners who have just turned up. You don’t want people coming over who just want to update their YouTube.”
Read more:
Estonia’s volunteer army warns about Russia
Russia takes complete control of Ukrainian city
Was lack of ammo to blame for Russia taking Avdiivka?
Should the West provide more weapons to Ukraine?
Military analyst Sean Bell agrees with Mr Pinner’s view about Westerners joining the fight.
He stresses the Ukrainians have enough personnel already, and ex-soldiers from NATO countries fighting in a war NATO has refused to enter can cause problems.
Bell says there is even a problem with donating shells, as they encourage attritional warfare, “which generally favours the bigger side” – Russia.
He adds that while the West readily donated precision weapons, as well as long-range missiles and tanks at the start of the conflict, now the UK has “emptied its war chest” of the older, stockpiled equipment, and “it’s got to a stage where we’re not comfortable with giving any more”.
New weapons systems risk falling into the wrong hands and compromising security, he adds, so most focus has now fallen on the US, which is trying to get a $60bn (£47bn) military aid package through Congress.
But Bell warns: “If funding was the only issue, the EU has already promised that much. It’s about converting dollars into weapons. They’re built to order and that all takes years not weeks.”
Mr Amin has written a book about his experience in Ukraine, Freedom At All Costs: A British Veteran’s Experiences Of The War In Ukraine.
Mr Pinner has also written a book, Live. Fight. Survive. He also teaches English and gives talks to Ukrainian soldiers.
The government at one point considered using Iraq to process asylum seekers – like the Rwanda scheme – according to documents seen by Sky News.
This could have seen people sent from the UK to a country the government advises against all travel to.
The two countries already have a returns agreement – but only for people that are from Iraq.
Politics live: Follow the latest updates here
According to leaked correspondence between high-ranking officials, the Iraqi returns commitments were made with a “request for discretion” and no publicity.
The country was willing to move forward but did not want a formal or public agreement.
The current travel advice to Iraq on the Foreign Office website simply advises against “all travel to parts of Iraq”. However, according to the document, negotiations were fairly advanced and described in one table as “good recent progress with Iraq”.
Other government aims included enhancing cooperation with the Iranian Embassy in order to enhance returns arrangements for migrants and potential asylum seekers.
Returns agreements are also in the works for Eritrea and Ethiopia, according to documents about work undertaken by the Home Office and Foreign Office that relates to countries with the highest number of nationals arriving to the UK by small boats.
In a tranche of internal government documents seen by Sky News, even from the earliest stage of the Rwanda policy, Downing Street advisers knew there were serious problems with their proposals.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
First Rwanda relocation raids carried out
There are even private admissions that many people arriving here on small boats did so without the assistance of criminal gangs – despite their communications strategy.
Comparisons were also made to Australia’s response – to what Downing Street officials understood to be a comparable “smaller problem” than in the UK and admitted it had cost billions of Australian dollars in order for their returns processes to be fully operational.
Read more:
Man, 38, arrested in connection with small boat crossings
Sunak says migrants going to Ireland shows Rwanda scheme is working
In one document submitted to the Home Office, some of the highest-ranking officials at the time wrote that their guidance was to be “prepared to pay over the odds” to get the policy up and running. And that the initial offer from Rwanda was a “modest sum”.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has priced the cost of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda at £1.8m per person for the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali.
It also disclosed that since April 2022 the Home Office has paid £220m into Rwanda’s economic transformation and integration fund, which is designed to support economic growth in Rwanda, and will continue to make payments to cover asylum processing and operational costs for individuals relocated to Rwanda.
It will also pay further amounts of £50m over the next year and an additional £50m the following year.
👉 Listen above then tap here to follow the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts 👈
A government source said: “The Home Office is spending millions every day accommodating migrants in hotels – that’s not right or fair. We’re taking action to put an end to this costly and dangerous cycle. Doing nothing is not a free option – we must act if we want to stop the boats and save lives.
“The UK is continuing to work with a range of international partners to tackle global illegal migration challenges. Our Rwanda partnership is a pioneering response to the global challenge of illegal migration, and we will get flights off the ground to Rwanda in the next nine to eleven weeks.”
“The moment you have it yourself you hear it everywhere, but for something so prevalent it’s not talked about at all,” says Patrick Keane. His right arm is plugged into a tube that runs up to a bag of clear liquid in a treatment room at the Royal Free Hospital in north London, one of the UK’s largest cancer treatment centres.
The 56-year-old’s future is dependent on the slow drip of chemicals that attack the cancer cells in his body. If the tumour in his bowel can be reduced by chemotherapy, it can then be more easily surgically removed.
Returning to duties last week after his own diagnosis, the King chose to highlight innovations in cancer research and the thousands who like him are living under the shadow of the disease.
Patrick is one. Indeed, he got his cancer diagnosis in late January, around the same time as the King, and he is taking part in an innovative clinical trial that may help future patients.
Patrick Keane is taking part in an innovative clinical trial that may help future patients
In this election year, charities are calling on political parties to produce long-term plans for tackling the disease as part of their manifesto pledges. While innovation is saving lives, there is a looming budget shortfall.
Cancer Research UK, to whom the King became patron last week, estimates there will be a £1bn gap in research funding within the next decade. This is in part due to inflation combined with the cost of living crisis impacting donations to cancer charities.
Add to this that the number of us getting cancer is increasing, projected to go up by a fifth by 2040.
The Royal Free London NHS Trust, which receives the highest number of cancer referrals in London at 50,000 a year, has seen a 10,000 increase in referrals since 2019.
It’s no surprise then that the NHS is missing targets for waiting times between urgent GP referrals and treatment.
Read more from Sky News:
‘All men should have screening’ says author Alex Wheatle
Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire demands
Lord Of The Rings and Titanic actor Bernard Hill dies
One in two of us will get cancer and, as Patrick knows too well, that word opens up a world of uncertainty. “The word carries so much baggage with it,” he says, and having it can send your mind to “some pretty dark places”.
He talks frankly about the treatment and its side effects, which after his first two rounds, have been minimal. “I didn’t have much of a head of hair to begin with,” he jokes.
Some of his hair has gone in patches, but asked what the hardest thing has been, he doesn’t hesitate: “My father passed away when I was 14. He died of cancer. I have 13-year-old twins so I couldn’t initially shift the thought – is this going to happen again? Passing 48, the age that my father died was a key milestone for me. My children being older than I was when my father passed away was another one.
“Nobody expects their dad to die. It’s a very unreal concept, and I’m not dying – but to try to have that conversation you know – ‘things will be fine.’ It’s very treatable.”
Two weeks after his third round of chemo, scans show the treatment has done its job, Patrick’s surgery can go ahead and is due to happen later this month.
Roopinder Gillmore, lead cancer physician at the Royal Free
More survive cancer as technology advances
Cancer is more treatable now. More of us are surviving it because technology is advancing.
At the Royal Free that ranges from a new cutting-edge £8m PET scanner, which offers a faster more accurate diagnosis, to new drugs offering greater survival chances.
Lead cancer physician at the Royal Free, Roopinder Gillmore, told Sky News: “We are doing surgery quicker, more keyhole robotic surgery in this hospital. We do liver transplants for patients with primary liver cancer, we’re trialling that out in other cancer types which is really exciting.
“We are doing more specialised radiotherapy and for me, my thing is drug treatments, and they are exponentially increasing in terms of what we can offer our patients. The big thing is immunotherapy, we didn’t have that 15 years ago. It has completely changed the outlook for people with lung cancer and skin cancer.”
Backlogs and waiting times have increased
But for all the advances, backlogs and waiting times have built up since the pandemic. The latest NHS figures show 64% of patients received their first treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral. The target is 85%.
That stretch on resources has a knock-on impact on patients like 29-year-old Beaux Harris.
Beaux, an actor and dancer who teaches at The Manor Dance Studio in north London, has what is called a mutated BRCA1 gene, which means her chances of getting cancer dramatically increase in her 30s.
She has a 60% chance of getting ovarian cancer and a 90% chance of getting breast cancer.
So she has decided to get a preventative double mastectomy and a hysterectomy but, due to the backlog, she has a long wait.
Beaux Harris has a mutated gene which means her chances of getting cancer dramatically increase in her 30s
‘I feel like I’ve got a ticking time bomb on me’
She says: “I feel like I’ve got a ticking time bomb on me – and it is terrifying. The truth is it doesn’t really feel like a choice when you are presented with a figure like that – it’s like saying would you get on a plane with a 90% chance of it crashing? I know I wouldn’t.”
She has been told that waiting times on the NHS for her preventative treatment is two years at the earliest.
She says people on her online support groups have waited five years. She’s also been told there’s a high chance the operation could be cancelled at the last minute if a high-demand cancer patient needs the slot.
“I could get timed out,” she says. So, she is crowdfunding to get the £50,000 plus she needs to go private.
‘I would love to be worrying about things that every other 29-year-old is worrying about’
She might need more funds if she wants some sort of normality at the end of it.
She says: “If I have a hysterectomy now, I can’t have children. So, I’m also trying to raise money to freeze my eggs. Something that is offered on the NHS to cancer patients, but not to BRCA patients.”
She certainly doesn’t want to wait until she gets cancer. Ovarian cancer is known as the silent killer due to the difficulty in early detection.
Beaux’s grandmother, her mother, and her aunt all died of cancer because of the BRCA1 mutated gene, she hopes to be the first female in her family in generations to survive having it.
“I would love to be worrying about things that every other 29-year-old is worrying about,” she says. “I’ve got some bloody Olivia awards to win!”
Indeed, Beaux is using her talents putting on performances and doing tap dance sessions to raise money for her treatment.
In some ways it is taken for granted that, because it touches so many of us, most of the money raised for cancer research in this country comes from the British public, but charities say the government needs to play a bigger role in ensuring the UK continues to innovate and improve treatment for what remains the defining health issue of our time.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment12 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports6 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Sports1 month agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company