On May 24, the War Museum hosted a meeting with Aiden Aslin, a former prisoner of war.
Aiden Aslin, with the call sign ’Kozak,’ is a British volunteer soldier who came to the defense of Ukraine in 2018, serving in the ranks of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, he participated in the defense of Mariupol. He was taken prisoner, which he mentioned at the meeting: "They took my documents and beat me because they saw that I was a foreigner, then the FSB came and took me to Donetsk, where I stayed until the exchange."
In Donetsk, Aiden was sentenced to death by the ’supreme court’ of the self-proclaimed ’Donetsk People’s Republic’, but he was released from captivity on September 21 as a part of the exchange. Constant interrogations, torture, physical and psychological violence – this is how the defender recalls his time in captivity. "Several times, they filmed their propaganda videos in which they forced me to say that I was a mercenary." However, in reality, the fighter explains his motivation for joining the Defense Forces as his desire to help the Ukrainian people. "I was in Syria and defended the Kurdish population. Later, I came to Ukraine because I realized that Ukrainians also need help in the war against the occupier."
After his release, Aiden wrote the book ’Putin’s Prisoner: My Time as a Prisoner of War in Ukraine’ and continued his fight as a member of the International Legion of the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. The defender is a keen learner of the Ukrainian language and wants to obtain Ukrainian citizenship.
The event was held on the FOR FREEDOM exhibition project platform created by the Museum in cooperation with the Romulus T. Weatherman Foundation. The exhibition is dedicated to the foreign volunteers who joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Defense Forces to defend the freedom and values of the democratic world.
We invite you to visit the FOR FREEDOM exhibition and stay tuned for the next museum announcements.
