Aiden Aslin has thanked business magnate Elon Musk for giving him the chance to call his family moments before being captured by Russian soldiers. The soldier, who is originally from Newark, Nottinghamshire, was already living in Ukraine and joined the army in a joint effort to defend the nation against Vladimir Putin's invasion.
In April, his mum, Ang Wood, recalled the moment Aiden called her to say he will surrender. "I got a phone call from him saying 'I think we are surrendering, we have no ammunition, no food, we have no water'", the 50-year-old recalled. "And then last Tuesday, early hours, I got to speak to Aiden again. It was a very short message that he was surrendering."
Mr Aslin had been fighting with his unit in the besieged south eastern city of Mariupol. He has finally returned home after being sentenced to death in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic [DPT] for "mercenary activities and committing actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the DPR."
