According to Russian state media, two British men were captured by Moscow’s forces in separatist-held Ukraine and charged with mercenary activity.
Dylan Healy, a 22-year-old aid worker from Cambridgeshire, and Andrew Hill, a military volunteer, have been charged with “mercenary activities,” according to Donetsk People’s Republic officials cited by Tass.
According to the news source, both men refused to cooperate with investigators.
It follows a video that appeared on Russian television in April featuring a man speaking with an English accent and claiming to be Andrew Hill from Plymouth.
Mr. Healy and Mr. Hill will face the same mercenary charges as Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, two British military volunteers captured in Mariupol and sentenced to death in Donetsk.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) stepped into the case of Mr. Aslin and Mr. Pinner on Thursday.
The Strasbourg court instructed Moscow to prevent the execution of the death sentences against Mr. Aslin, a 28-year-old from Newark, Nottinghamshire, and Mr. Pinner, a 48-year-old from Bedfordshire.
Before the invasion, Mr. Aslin and Mr. Pinner lived in Ukraine, and the British government insisted that, as legitimate members of the Ukrainian armed forces, they must be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.
It followed the government’s announcement on Wednesday that it would impose sanctions on Russia’s second-richest man, Vladimir Potanin, and Vladimir Putin’s cousin, Anna Tsivileva, as part of the latest round of measures targeting Putin’s allies.
The owner of the Interross conglomerate is Mr. Potanin.
