A Briton released from Russia has said he was “treated worse than a dog” and held in solitary confinement for five months.
Aiden Aslin has returned to the UK after being detained for months after being taken hostage by Russian-backed forces in Ukraine.
Speaking to the Sun on Sunday, he said that after he was stabbed, he was asked if he wanted a quick or “nice” death.
In addition, he said the prisoners had to sing the Russian national anthem every morning.
“And if you didn’t sing it, you would be punished for it. You would be beaten”, he confessed.
In the interview, the former prisoner revealed that he was stabbed while in captivity – and beaten because of his tattoos.
Otherwise, ten detainees, including Aslin, were released on Wednesday evening after Saudi Arabia said it had brokered an exchange between Russia and Ukraine.
Among them were five British nationals who were released – including John Harding, Dylan Healy, Andrew Hill and Shaun Pinner.
Aslin, from Newark, Nottinghamshire, was captured in April while fighting in the southeastern city of Mariupol.
After that, he, Pinner and a Moroccan citizen, Brahim Saadoun, were put on trial in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and told they faced the death penalty.
Referring to an occasion when he was stabbed in the back, Aslin said: “I knew there was a very high possibility that I would be killed.”
Aslin further testified that he was kept in a two-person cell with four people and had to sleep on a mattress infested with lice.
“We couldn’t go to the toilet properly because we didn’t have a toilet,” he said, adding that they had to use empty bottles.
Talking about the moment when his passport was checked, he said: “As soon as I said I was from Great Britain, I got punched in the nose.”