8 2GM Wednesday April 13 2022 | the times
NewsNews War in Ukraine
A British volunteer fighting in Ukraine
has been captured by Russian troops in
the besieged city of Mariupol, accord-
ing to a statement issued on his behalf.
In a message posted on Twitter,
Aiden Aslin, 28, said that his unit, which
contains other international volun-
teers, had been forced to surrender
after running out of food and
ammunition.
The former care worker from
Newark, Nottinghamshire, volun-
teered to fight Islamic State in Syria
before moving to Ukraine in 2018,
where he serves in the country’s
marines. There are hopes that he will be
freed as part of a prisoner exchange.
Aslin, who goes by the name
“Johnny”, has used the online alias
“Cossack Gundi” to update his tens of
thousands of followers on Twitter,
Instagram and Telegram throughout
the war about the defence of Mariupol,
which has been under attack by
Russian forces for several weeks.
A statement posted to his Twitter
account this morning read: “We’ve
gotten word from Johnny. ‘It’s been
48 days, we tried our best to defend
Mariupol but we have no choice but to
surrender to Russian forces. We have
no food and no ammunition. It’s been a
pleasure everyone, I hope this war ends
soon.’”
The statement continued: “We’re
putting this out after direct consulta-
tion with his family. Until we’re told
otherwise we’ll continue working on
sharing the facts of the war. Hope for a
prisoner exchange.”
Briton ‘surrenders’
in Mariupol as he
runs out of food
George Grylls, Charlie Parker Russian forces are close to over-
whelming Mariupol, having succeeded
in splitting up the last two bands of
Ukrainian resistance in the city.
British and American volunteers
have been high-profile targets for
Putin’s army throughout the conflict. A
pro-Kremlin Telegram account
claimed this month that a passport
photocopy belonging to Shaun Pinner,
a former British Army soldier in
Ukraine, had been found among the
remains of “some destroyed Nazis”.
However, Aslin, who has been fighting
with Pinner, 48, issued a correction
days later and said that stories of
Pinner’s demise were “wildly pre-
mature”. He added: “Russians lie a lot.”
Aslin’s capture by Russian troops
appears to have been confirmed by
other sources who spoke to the British
fighter this morning and corroborated
the statement issued on his behalf.
“I just spoke with [Aslin]. His unit is
out of ammo and food,” one friend told
Atlas News. “They have no other option
but to surrender. He said he loves you
all. He is strong in spirit and showed no
weakness at all.
“He is surrendering to Russians,
which is only slightly better than
surrendering to the Chechens. Their
commander will be meeting them soon.
Please Lord have mercy.”
A recording of a phone call allegedly
including Aslin’s voice was also shared
on social media. The recording, which
has not been verified, appears to be of a
phone call between the emotional-
sounding British fighter and an
American volunteer preparing to travel
to Ukraine.
“They’re probably going to use me
for f***ing bullshit propaganda,” Aslin
says, in an apparent reference to his
captors.
Asked by the American whether he
had civilian clothes he could use to
disguise himself to escape, Aslin replies:
“We already tried that — we’re out. We
tried it. It didn’t work.”
He adds: “They’re already looking for
me... We’ve been trying for the past
three weeks.”
There were unconfirmed reports
yesterday that Russian troops had de-
ployed chemical weapons in Mariupol
in a final attempt to end the defenders’
resistance. Ukraine’s Azov regiment
said three soldiers were injured by “a
poisonous substance” in a drone attack
on the Azovstal steelworks, where its
troops are entrenched. None was badly
hurt by the “sweet-tasting” white
smoke that spread over the area.
The 36th Separate Marine Brigade of
the Ukrainian army issued a desperate
statement announcing that it was deal-
ing with a “mountain of wounded” and
that its eight-week battle was coming to
an end. “We were bombed from air-
planes and shot at by artillery and
tanks. We have been doing everything
possible and impossible. But any re-
source has the potential to run out,” the
brigade said on Facebook.
“The enemy gradually pushed us
back. They surrounded us with fire, and
are now trying to destroy us.”
Last night Mariupol’s deputy mayor,
Serhiy Orlov, insisted that Ukrainian
forces in the city were still holding out
against the attackers.
War in Ukraine, letters, page 32President Biden has accused President
Putin for the first time of genocide in
Ukraine, using the word his officials
had been careful to avoid.
It was unclear whether the remark
was planned or off the cuff.
“Your family budget, your ability to
fill up your tank — none of it should
hinge on whether a dictator declares
war and commits genocide a half a
world away,” Biden said during a speech
in Iowa last night on tackling inflation.
It comes as an American general who
speaks fluent Russian is set to be named
the most senior Nato commander in
Europe, taking charge of 140,000 allied
troops stationed across the continent.
General Christopher Cavoli, who has
a master’s degree in Russian from Yale
University, is expected to succeed Air
Force General Tod Wolters as US Euro-
pean Command, a position that will
also make him Supreme Allied Com-
mander Europe.
As the US prepares for a new era of
conventional land warfare after
decades battling insurgencies in the
Middle East, the appointment of a
Russian speaker is an acknowledge-
ment of the failure of Barack Obama’s
attempt to “reset” relations between
Washington and Moscow.
The US has deployed an extra 20,
President Zelensky has refused to meet
the president of Germany, who was
planning to visit Ukraine with other
European leaders today, telling him his
presence was “not welcome”.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a former
foreign minister who is now the head of
state, has faced growing criticism over
his sympathetic attitude to Russia.
“I was prepared to do this, but appar-
ently, and I must take note of this, this
was not wanted in Kyiv,” he said.
While the presidents of Poland,
Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia were
allowed to visit, Zelensky is said to have
singled out Steinmeier.
The German president, whose role is
largely ceremonial, made an officialKyiv withdraws welcome
visit to Warsaw yesterday. He previous-
ly served as foreign minister in Angela
Merkel’s first and third cabinets, from
2005 to 2009 and then 2013 to 2017.
During his last tenure he infamously
called Nato defence exercises in
eastern Europe “sabre-rattling” and
“war-howling”, echoing Russian com-
plaints about the western alliance.
Steinmeier, 66, is also reported to
have been close with Sergey Lavrov,
President Putin’s foreign minister, and
was a strong supporter of the now-can-
celled Nordstream 2 gas pipeline.
The German newspaper Bild referred
to the president as “the architect of the
Russia-friendly policies of the [Ger-
man] federal government.”
He is also known for creating the
disastrous “Steinmeier formula” inJames Jackson BerlinBiden accuses ‘dictator’ of genocide
troops to Europe in response to the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, bringing
the total number stationed on the con-
tinent to 100,000. Other Nato members
have provided a further 40,000 troops.
Nato has deployed additional troops
to Eastern Europe, where multination-
al battlegroups are already stationed in
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Further battlegroups will be estab-
lished in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania
and Slovakia, extending Nato’s pres-
ence from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Finland and Sweden have signalledthey could apply to become Nato mem-
bers this summer in a reaction to
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokes-
man, said: “We have repeatedly said
that the alliance remains a tool geared
towards confrontation and its further
expansion will not bring stability to the
European continent.”
The Pentagon is also set to appoint a
new general to lead its Special Opera-
tion forces, according to The Wall StreetJournal. Army Lieutenant General
Bryan Fenton will replace Army
General Richard Clarke as head of US
special operations around the world.
Cavoli is at present the commander
of the US Army in Europe. The Italian-
American was born in Germany to a US
officer stationed there in the Cold War.
After gaining a BA from Princeton in
biology and an MA in Russian and
Eastern European studies from Yale, he
was deployed to Bosnia, where he
served as a major in the Nato-led
peacekeeping forces.
He commanded the US 1st Battalion,
32nd Infantry Regiment in Afghan-
istan, rising to deputy commander for
American forces in Herat. In 2016 he
was promoted to the rank of major
general and took command of the
American armed forces in Europe.
The White House will formally
nominate him for the position of US
European command, leading to a con-
firmation vote in the Senate.
6 Unverified footage shows Russian
missile systems moving towards the
border with Finland hours after Russia
warned the country against joining
Nato. Sky News said it located the
video, which appears to show the
K-300P Bastion-P mobile coastal
defence system, to Vyborg in Russia.
Nato should welcome Finland and
Sweden, leading article, page 33George Grylls
General Christopher
Cavoli also speaks
Italian and French