Aiden Aslin, from Newark, talks about his time as a Russian prisoner of war after he was captured fighting in Mariupol, Ukraine
In the second part of a series of interviews with news editor Dan Churcher, former soldier and prisoner of war Aiden Aslin talks about his time in Russian captivity.
Aiden Aslin said he had mentally-prepared himself for a beating when he surrendered to Russian forces during the fight for Mariupol, Ukraine.
But a day after that surrender the Russians established who he was and separated him from his fellow captured soldiers and he was earmarked for special attention as a prize asset.
His Russian captors were keen to establish Aiden as a mercenary who had defied the strongest advice of the UK government not to travel to fight for the Ukrainians and wanted to make an example of him.
Aiden knew that Russia now had its show prisoner, a Briton, to bully, belittle, torture and to use as a propaganda tool to send a message to the West of how its nationals would be treated and to deter others from signing up.
Within a day of his capture, he was on his way to the self-proclaimed breakaway Donetsk People's Republic.
And, in his first interrogation, that lasted two hours, he was beaten with baton, and also stabbed by the brutes of the Russian FSB. At one point, he blacked out.
He was then placed in a cell with around 30 other detainees where he was held for two-and-a-half weeks, surviving on one piece of bread and a cup of water a day.
The interrogations continued and included print outs of press cuttings being placed before him, including those from the Newark Advertiser, accompanied by questions such as 'so, you're a hero, you're famous?'
"After the first few days I became normalised to it, but then the propaganda and the interviews started. The guy who stabbed and beat me was always there," said Aiden
One of the 'interviews' that Aiden did was with the Nottingham blogger Graham Phillips, who has won awards from the Krelim for his pro-Russian work and who subsequently became the first Briton to be sanctioned by the UK government.
Despite Phillips saying in the video, which was widely condemned as a breach of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, that Aiden had requested it, Aiden confirmed that he done no such thing and said the questions, and the answers, were scripted and rehearsed.
"I had devised a way of communicating with my my family that, should I be captured, there would be things that I would do to show that I was speaking under duress - such as scratching my nose or talking funny," he said.
During his time in captivity Aiden would be frequently taunted by his captors, and asked questions such as 'did he want a beautiful or a quick death?' His family were subjected to the mental torture of blackmail and extortion. Along with attempts to extract money came the taunts of execution sites being built or that he had already been executed and they would never have his body returned.
The only positive that he could take from his public humiliation was that it showed the world he was alive, and that made more him more to difficult to kill or to disappear to a Russian labour camp for the rest of his days.
It was while being interrogated that Aiden learned that his friend and fellow marine Shaun Pinner was alive, having previously been told by the Russians the man was dead. It was while being psychologically assessed for trail as a mercenary and war criminal that he first met fellow captive Ibrahim Saadun, from Morocco.
The three men were to be put before a kangaroo court not recognised by international law in a televised trial.
"We tried to push back against the process to start with," said Aiden.
"We decided to plead guilty to terrorism training and taking part in the conflict.
"We were asked to plead to being mercenaries, but, when asked, pleaded not guilty.
"Our lawyer asked to speak with us and asked us why? We said we were members of the Ukrainian military forces and therefore protected by international law. He replied that 'international law does not apply here'.
"When your own lawyer says that you realise that you don't have any chance. We pled guilty to that too in the hope that we would get a favourable sentence.
"I was gobsmacked when they sentenced us to death. I knew it was a show trial but I expected a life sentence, something from them to try and show that they weren't barbarians.
"When they announced it on TV, I realised 'they've just told the world. They won't go back on it now'.
"Everything got to the point that I couldn't carry on any more. I was pretty bad mentally. My mind would argue with itself. The guards would ask me over the days and weeks why I hadn't been shot yet. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. I was just waiting.
"I had been five months in a prison cell. The routine was always the same — four to five times a week, propaganda. I was developing Stockholm Syndrome."
