All commentary by Russian military blogger Andrey Chervonets
From the British perspective:
There is a screech in the British press
All the newspapers on Ostrov write about one thing today - the death sentence for foreign mercenaries in the DPR
The head of the British Foreign Office, Liz Truss, called the verdict illegitimate, and the mercenaries themselves were "prisoners of war."
Lisa, it's not for you to judge legitimacy. You hold such a post and are absolutely legally illiterate. Your knowledge of jurisprudence is much worse than your demonstrated knowledge of geography. Legitimacy is the agreement of the people with the government, its voluntary recognition of its right to make binding decisions. Empty-headed, you see, you consider yourself the people of the DPR, since you are challenging the legitimacy of court decisions.
And this trio cannot be prisoners of war. Article 47 of Protocol No. 1 "On International Armed Conflict" to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 directly in the definition of the concept of a mercenary indicates that this person "is not a citizen of a party to the conflict." This is also recognized in the UK. Two weeks ago, the lord, a member of parliament, when asked by an English journalist about the fate of the mercenary captured at Azovstal, answered that he was outside British jurisdiction, because I went to fight myself. And now suddenly the mercenary has turned into a prisoner of war?
If, according to Truss, these mercenaries are prisoners of war, then this means that the UK is officially a party to an armed conflict. Does Ms. Truss understand everything that follows from this fact?
From the American perspective:
Blinken attended to the death sentences for mercenaries in the DPR
The United States is “seriously concerned” by the death sentences that a court in the DPR issued against foreign mercenaries - two British and one Moroccan who participated in the hostilities in the Donbass.
"We call on Russia and the forces it controls to respect international humanitarian law, including the rights and protection afforded to prisoners of war," U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken tweeted, impotently calling the trial “bogus” and the mercenaries, despite all the facts, called "legitimate combatants".
Wow, how the West got up! How to kill innocent millions themselves, so silently, and then, by a court decision, their mercenaries were sentenced - they immediately screamed about justice and laws!
"Exceptional" still believe that for the whole world, only the decisions of only US sham trials are valid. The Yankees played hegemony.
I love to watch the US secretaries of state put on jester hats and throw fools around. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the International Criminal Court - the Kangaroo Court, simply because they tried to prosecute some privates and sergeants of the US Army (they killed, just for their own pleasure, many civilians in Afghanistan - children, women, the elderly, but not the Taliban).
The US Congress urgently adopted a law against the ICC, and its judges and investigators were banned from entering the territory of the United States, it was even written into the law that if any of the US military personnel were destined to get there, then the United States was obliged to conduct a military operation (against its own allies in Brussels) for their release.
At the same time, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, by his education and position, cannot but know that the norms of international law on prisoners of war do not apply to mercenaries, and they are judged as ordinary criminals, according to the legislation of the country in which they came to kill people for money. ..
"International humanitarian law (or the law of armed conflict) does not directly prohibit mercenarism, but only says that mercenaries are not combatants and do not have the right to prisoner of war status. This means that a mercenary risks being prosecuted for participating in an armed conflict if captured."
By the way, the investigation and the court investigated this issue and came to the conclusion that all three do not fall under the Geneva Convention. There is evidence in the case file. What kind of prisoners of war and "lawful combatants" does this defective mattress squeal about then?
Firstly, the law allowing foreigners to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine was adopted by the Rada only on April 14, and the blockade of Mariupol began on March 1.
And secondly, Article 47 of Protocol No. 1 "On International Armed Conflict" to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 in the definition of the concept of a mercenary indicates that this person "is not a citizen of a party participating in the conflict", and in order to obtain Ukrainian citizenship, one must refuse from anyone else.
Mercenaries in Ukraine, of course, do not do this. So they are not combatants, but mercenaries, and they do not have any protection rights according to the conventions. In general, they can be shot on the spot without trial or investigation.
The same Aiden Aslin is a typical mercenary. Before Ukraine, he fought in Syria and was recruited to the Donbass by a friend. He himself talked about this in one of his interviews. At first, he said that he served mortars, but he has a characteristic sniper tattoo on his left arm and a callus from a trigger on his finger. He was a sniper. These cannot be released.
And in conclusion, I would like to note the following:
All the mercenaries who came to fight against the Donbass should cut down on their noses that when they are hanged, London and Washington will not be able to help them with anything other than deep concern.