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Russia's military captured a British national fighting with Ukrainian troops who have occupied part of Russia's Kursk region, according to reports Monday, as Moscow began daylight drone attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine and its ground forces accelerated gains along parts of the front line.
The Briton was identified by state news agency Tass and other media as James Scott Rhys Anderson. Tass quoted him as saying that he had served as a signalman in the British army for four years and then joined the International Legion of Ukraine, formed early on in Russia's nearly 3-year-old war against its neighbor.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are straining to hold at bay a push by Russia's bigger army at places in the eastern Donetsk region. Russian forces recently have gained ground at “a significantly quicker rate” than they did in the whole of last year, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.
The Russians have detected and are exploiting weaknesses in the Ukrainian defenses, it said in an analysis late Sunday.
The war surpassed 1,000 days last week, and the milestone coincided with a significant escalation in hostilities.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said Russia is adapting its drone tactics, as it fired 145 Shahed drones at Ukraine.
Russia has started launching drones during the day, whereas in the past most drone attacks occurred during the night, the air force said.
Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the National Security Council’s Counter-disinformation Center, said earlier this month that the Russians were looking to conserve their stocks of more destructive but more expensive missiles and also terrorize civilians.
The air force said it stopped almost all the drones before they struck.
But a morning missile attack on downtown Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, injured at least 23 people, according to Mayor Ihor Terekhov. He said the attack on a densely populated residential area was carried out by a modified surface-to-air S-400 missile.
The captured Briton reportedly served as an instructor for Ukrainian troops and was deployed to the Kursk region against his will. Tass published a video of the man saying in English that he doesn’t want to be “here.”
The report couldn’t be independently verified, but if confirmed it could be one of the first publicly known case of a Western national captured on Russian soil while fighting for Ukraine.
The U.K. Embassy in Moscow said officials were "supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention” but provided no further details.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The soldier’s father, Scott Anderson, told Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper that his son’s Ukrainian commander had informed him that the young man had been captured.
Scott Anderson said his son had served in the British military for four years, then briefly worked as a police custody officer before going to Ukraine to fight. He said he tried to convince his son not to join the Ukrainian military, and now he fears for his safety.
“I’m hoping he’ll be used as a bargaining chip, but my son told me they torture their prisoners and I’m so frightened he’ll be tortured," he told the newspaper.
The International Legion for Defense of Ukraine was created at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The Legion is a unit of Ukraine’s Ground Forces that consists mostly of foreign volunteers. Apart from the Legion, Ukraine recruits foreigners to other units of its army, filling squads, companies, or even battalions.
Early on in the war, Ukraine’s authorities said over 20,000 people from 52 countries came to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russia's aggression. Ever since, the numbers of foreign fighters in the ranks of the Ukrainian military have been classified.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
14 Comments
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JJE
This is confirmed. Another misguided thrill seeker with one foot in the grave. Another way to describe him is a mercenary. There could be severe penalties for this conduct.
UAF has been packed with foreign mercs.
Truth is huge amounts of UAF prisoners are being taken in Kursk every day because the alternative isn't so popular.
Blacklabel
Yet Ukraine can’t capture any of these supposed North Koreans?
Mr Kipling
He will be released after a few months just like several other UK nationals who have been taken prisoner.
Probably to sell his "story" to the gutter press.
geronimo2006
Bet the Russians are thinking great - kings ransom to get him back.
JJE
Initial interrogation videos have made their way onto SM. Clearly this guy is a very naive individual. He doesn't appear to have much (or any grasp) of the local lingo.
His captors gave him a knitted jumper with a Union jack motif out of common decency.
It'll be interesting to see whether it is GRU or FSB or others, who/where he gets handed over to and what happens to him.
UK government better get a big bag of cash ready.
JJE
Claims he was born of 24th May 2002. Claims he got fired from his job in 2023 (which was apparently with the police), he'd "lost everything" and his father was in jail - so he decided to join this "legion" after seeing it on TV and applied online.
Outlined how he flew from UK to Poland to enter Ukraine, which he did from Medyka on the border.
Says he had his passport, other stuff and phone confiscated at some stage in Ukraine.
Larger issue is why the UK government isn't stopping this - remember they (and other governments) went after foreign volunteers joining ISIS. Typical double standards.
Underworld
Must be a slow news day.
Yrral
He is a mercenary,he not covered under the Geneva Convention
stormcrow
It's still a far cry from the tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers who are running around inside of Ukraine trying to kill them in their own country.
Blacklabel
Thousands inside Ukraine?
but can’t seem to capture even one of them to show us?
TaiwanIsNotChina
Means nothing as russia has actual national militaries fighting for it.
TaiwanIsNotChina
And the world will take note of any such savagery.
Why is russia so hard up for cash that it has to resort to kidnapping like a drug cartel?
Really blows a hole in the whole theory that there are crack special forces from the west operating in Ukraine, doesn't it?
russia is the ISIS level side in this conflict.
dobre vam zajebava
there is evidence of UK direct involvement in conflict vs rumours of thousands of killed of DPRK soldires by greatest UA army forces...
evidence vs ..
btw no updates about Oreshnik?maybe west still believes it was a ...joke?
also I see no lines abt daily UA victories and successes...?
UA fans may be not happy fro this hidden coverage as they still believes that Ukraine prevails...
falseflagsteve
Thankfully this charade is almost over. The only real winners will be those that loaned money to Ukraine and Blackrock who have purchased a large amount of farmland and more estate at bargain prices.
TaiwanIsNotChina
That convinced that russia won't subjugate the country and invalidate all of that, huh?
falseflagsteve
Taiwan
120,000 resident of the Donbas who evacuated to Ukraine have so far returned to Russian controlled areas due to lack of financial support. Where is all this money going? Not to those who need it obviously
Before this conflict began Ukraine was the most corrupt country in Europe with Russia second.