Footage has emerged of a captured British aid worker appearing on Russian television in handcuffs.
In the footage, Paul Urey, 45, brands the UK Government 'corrupt' and criticises British media coverage of the Ukraine invasion.
The dad, from Warrington, was taken by Russian soldiers in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, alongside another UK national, 22-year-old Dylan Healy on Monday, April 25.
It is believed the pair had travelled to the warn-torn country to help provide humanitarian assistance, Chronicle Live reports.
In the heavily edited clip, which features a watermark from Russian news program 60 Minutes, the Brit calls UK news agencies and the UK Government 'corrupt', and says that he is gathering photographs as evidence of the British media's deception.
Mr Urey said: "I wanted to see whether it was as bad as they said. I don't believe the news in England. I wanted to see the refugee crisis: Was it really as bad as they said on the news?
"We had to wait ... at the checkpoint on the bridge for an hour. Then we came to the bridge, we looked at it, and I asked the driver to stop ... because I had noticed that that was not a Russian strike on the bridge."
He continues: "It was blown up from inside – underneath it. So I took some pictures from the front, from the side... from the side of it, to show evidence... that the media in England is lying. It is not truthful.
"The only way for me as an English national to do that, is with Al Jazeera TV... Because the British Government, they have their fingers – they are corrupt... the newspapers."
Mr Urey adds: "So Al Jazeera would have been who I would have uploaded those photos to, and I would have said: 'This is not a Russian strike.'"
Mr Urey's mother, Linda, released a statement following the emergence of the footage: “This is physically my son," she said, "but he is not acting in his natural way; his words are too matter of fact and his facial expressions make me not believe what he is saying.
“Normally he speaks fast and to the point. I know my son like every mother, and this is not him being natural.”
In the video, Mr Urey also states that: "2008 to 2010 I was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I volunteered on my own to go and help the Libyan... revolution. I went and helped them on my own, I just joined the cause."
It is not known whether Mr Urey was speaking under duress. Mr Urey and Mr Healy are believed to have been working independently of humanitarian organisations.
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