Dr Liudmyla Sharipova is an assistant professor of early modern European history in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham. She was born and raised in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, in the 1980s. Nottinghamshire Live asked Dr Sharipova for her thoughts after Aiden Aslin, from Nottinghamshire, was sentenced to death by a Russian court earlier in June. Aiden had been captured by Russian forces while fighting in Ukraine.
Dr Liudmyla Sharipova writes: "On June 9 this year two British men Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and the Moroccan national Saadoun Brahim, were sentenced by the “Supreme Court” of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” in Russia-occupied Eastern Ukraine to execution by the firing squad.
"The three expatriates had made Ukraine their home and lately valiantly fought for their adoptive country against the full-scale Russian invasion that began on 24 February 2022. The news would have sent shivers down one’s spine even if the “court” and the “republic” (“established” eight years ago, in 2014, following a predatory land grab by Russia) had been real entities.
