By New York Post (World News) | Created at 2024-11-25 13:25:06 | Updated at 2024-11-25 15:40:42
2 hours ago
A 22-year-old former British Army soldier fighting with Ukrainian troops has been captured by Russian forces in the war-torn Kursk region, according to reports.
A young man in military fatigues speaking with an English accent identified himself as James Scott Rhys Anderson in a video circulating in Russian media on Sunday.
Anderson, who appears to have his hands tied, claimed that he served four years as a signalman in the British army before he joined the International Legion of Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion.
“I was in the British Army before, from 2019 to 2023, 22 Signal Regiment. Just a private, I was a signalman. One Signal Brigade, 22 Signal Regiment, 252 Squadron,” the mercenary said to the camera in the clip obtained by Russian state news agency Tass.
Anderson said he traveled to Ukraine via Poland and claimed he regretted signing up to fight with the volunteer squadron after he was kicked out of the British forces, calling the decision “stupid.”
“When I got fired from my job I applied on the International Legion webpage. I had just lost everything, I had just lost my job,” he said.
“It was a stupid idea.”
The UK Embassy in Moscow said it was “supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention,” according to The Telegraph.
The soldier’s father, Scott Anderson, told The Daily Mail that his son’s Ukrainian commander had informed him that the young man had been captured.
The distraught dad said he tried to convince his son not to fight in the war 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 paper.
Yuri Podolyaka, one of Russia’s most popular military bloggers, with more than three million subscribers on Telegram, said that the Briton was caught in the village of Plekhovo, a village in Kursk the Ukrainian army has reportedly turned into a “stronghold,” The Telegraph reported.
“Soon the village will be completely liberated from occupation. There is not much time left there,” he said.
Ukrainian forces in Kursk are struggling to fend off a counter-offensive by Russian troops, assisted by some 10,000 North Korean soldiers, who are attempting to reclaim part of the occupied territory seized by Ukraine in August.
Kyiv has reportedly lost nearly half of the territory it seized, a senior Ukrainian military official told Reuters over the weekend.
Anderson is not the first Briton captured by Russia in the conflict.
In 2022, Shaun Pinner, also a former British army soldier, and Aiden Aslin were captured in the city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine.
The two were sentenced to death but were later returned to Ukraine in a prison swap.
Pinner later said he was forced to listen to ABBA’s “Mamma Mia” on repeat while being tortured. He said his captors stabbed him and subjected him to mock executions.
“I thought I was going to die. It was hell on Earth,” Pinner told the Sun.
In addition to Pinner and Aslin, fellow Brits Dylan Healy, Andrew Hill and John Harding were released after Saudi Arabia brokered a secret deal between Russia and Ukraine.
