Russia jails Australian man for fighting alongside Ukraine

An Australian man who was captured by Russian forces while fighting alongside Ukraine has been sentenced to 13 years in a maximum security prison, Russian-installed prosecutors have said.

Oscar Jenkins, 33, was convicted in a Russian-controlled court in occupied eastern Ukraine on Friday of fighting in an armed conflict as a mercenary.

Mr Jenkins, a teacher from Melbourne, was captured last December in the Luhansk region.

Prosecutors said he arrived in Ukraine in February 2024, alleging he was paid between 600,000 and 800,000 rubles (£5,504 and £7,339) a month to take part in military operations against Russian troops.

A video surfaced in December last year showing Mr Jenkins with his hands tied, being hit in the face and questioned by Russian forces. They ask him if he is being paid to fight in Ukraine.

In January, Australia summoned the Russian ambassador over false reports that Mr Jenkins had been killed following his capture.

Since then, the Australian government has repeatedly called for his release.

“We’ll continue to make representations to the reprehensible regime of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin on behalf of Mr Jenkins,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told 9News in April.

In March, a British man James Scott Rhys Anderson was jailed for 19 years by a Russian military court after being charged with terrorism and mercenary activity, becoming the first British national convicted by Russia during the war.

The 22-year-old was captured last November in Russia’s Kursk region – where Ukrainian forces began a surprise incursion last August before retreating in recent months.

Just before launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised all of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent of Ukraine. Russian proxy forces began an insurgency there in 2014.