Concerns are growing for two British humanitarian volunteers who have reportedly been captured by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The Mirror reports that soldiers from Russia who are fighting in the conflict in their neighbouring country kidnapped the two men while they were heading to the south-eastern region of Dniprorudne in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The pair have not been heard from since 4am on Monday, April 25.
The alarm was raised by the Presidium Network, a group doing relief work in Ukraine. The group had been monitoring their efforts.
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The pair were driving to help evacuate a woman and two children when communications between them ceased. However, suspicion was raised when communication resumed sometime later but containing uncharacteristic errors.
The Mirror has seen WhatsApp and Viber messages that show a long gap between interactions before later, suspicious-looking messages begin to claim they are safe, but were notably not written in the missing men's natural style and failed to issue code words for security. In the later Viber messages between the woman who was meant to get evacuated and one of the men, the texts are riddled with spelling errors, whereas the WhatsApp messages from before their reported disappearance had been consistently written clearly.
Furthermore, The Mirror has also learned that the woman claims her house was then raided by Russian forces, mere hours after her most recent message from the man's phone. She told Dominik Bryne of Presidium Network that they forced her husband to lie on the floor and demanded to know how they knew the "British spies".
It is unclear where the two British humanitarian workers have been taken, and both men are said to have gone to Ukraine voluntarily to aid in evacuations and other humanitarian efforts. International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan told Sky News that the Foreign Office is trying to ID two Brits who have been kidnapped in Ukraine.
She said: "The Foreign Office obviously has been working very closely with those in Ukraine both to make sure the identification is correct and indeed to work with local authorities and to support families here. As we’ve set out right from the beginning we don’t want British nationals to go and fight but there are many many ways in which so many people… can all support.
"We don't want people to go and fight but obviously the Foreign Office is doing all it can to support and identify these two people."
The Mirror has contacted the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for a comment in regards to the missing humanitarian workers. It comes after the Foreign Office confirmed that a British man has been killed in Ukraine.
Scott Sibley, who reportedly previously served in UK military, died on April 23, according to a GoFundMe page set up in his memory. Unconfirmed reports suggest the veteran, known as 'Sibs' to his pals, and another Brit who is missing had been fighting alongside Ukrainians against the Russian forces.
The FCDO confirmed a British man had died in Ukraine while another was still missing, but did not provide any details on what the men had been doing in the war-torn country. Vladimir Putin claims his "special military operation" is to "de-Nazify" Ukraine and that his conflict is against NATO powers - a multilateral organisation that he sees as a direct threat to Russia.
Moscow has also hit out at the UK for saying Britain would support Ukraine’s right to hit Russian military targets on Russian soil, using UK weapons. Today, the UK Defence Secretary said Nato forces "outnumber and outgun" Russia.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned the crews of Britain’s nuclear weapon-armed submarines were "deep underwater, hiding, waiting, in case Britain needs to be protected". Russia’s President yesterday warned he would mount a "lightning-fast" retaliation if the West intervened in Ukraine, warning "we have all the tools" and "we will use them if necessary".
But Mr Wallace said he did not think Putin will use nuclear weapons. The top Tory said Russia's President has committed "massive strategic blunders", noting drily: "His so-called lightning invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone too well."
