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MADRID 25 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Russian Army has captured a British man who was fighting alongside Ukrainian troops in the Russian region of Kursk, the scene of an incursion since August, according to Russian media, which suggest that the man would be a military instructor, without the authorities of the Kingdom United Kingdom have officially commented on the matter.
The man, who identifies himself as James Scott Rees Anderson, states in a video collected by the Russian news agency TASS that he served in the British Armed Forces between 2019 and 2023, after which he joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, created after the start of the invasion of the country by the Russian Army in February 2022.
He also claims that he spent several months training Ukrainian soldiers near the town of Ingulets, around Krivoy Rog, after which the Ukrainian forces “took away his passport and phone” and ordered him to deploy to support the raid. in Kursk.
In the recording, whose veracity has not been verified, the man appears with his hands tied. The United Kingdom has not commented on the video, although the British Foreign Office has said that it “supports the family of a British man following reports of his arrest,” according to BBC television.
For his part, the man’s father has indicated in statements to the ‘Daily Mail’ newspaper that he is “shocked” by the video and has added that he fears his son will be tortured. Furthermore, he stressed that the family asked him not to go to Ukraine, although “he thought he was doing the right thing.”
“I hope it will be used as a bargaining chip, but my son told me that they torture prisoners, so I fear that he will be tortured,” he said, while revealing that “he was only home a month and a half ago” and that I was planning to return to the United Kingdom for the Christmas holidays.
The Russian Armed Forces captured two Britons in the summer of 2022 as part of the fighting in the city of Mariupol. Both were sentenced to death, although they were finally released within the framework of a prisoner exchange agreement with Ukraine, reached with the mediation of Saudi Arabia.
Russian troops have been fighting Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region since August 6, when kyiv launched a surprise offensive against the country, within the framework of the conflict that broke out in February 2022 after the invasion order issued by the president of Russia , Vladimir Putin.