SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
London: An Australian soldier fighting as part of Ukraine’s foreign legion has been captured by Russian forces in the Donbas region and paraded on social media as a Western mercenary.
Footage of 32-year-old Melbourne man Oscar Jenkins, with his hands tied, was circulated on social media platform Telegram on Sunday. The footage shows Jenkins being slapped across the face by a man speaking in Russian.
Oscar Jenkins, a former Melbourne Grammar student, was captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine’s foreign legion in the Donbas region.Credit: Telegram
Jenkins, speaking in both English and broken Ukrainian, gave his name and age, and said he was a biology teacher who had joined the armed forces because he wanted to help Ukraine.
Dressed in military camouflage clothing with dirt on his face, Jenkins underwent rapid-fire questioning from his captor about why he was in Kramatorsk, almost 700 kilometres east of Kyiv, and if he was being paid to fight.
“Where are you from?” says his captor in the video, a version of which was circulated with English subtitles. A confused Jenkins is then slapped across the face when he does not understand.
When asked his nationality, he replies: “I’m Australian”.
“Who the f–k are you?” his captor then asks, before saying “name?” in English.
“My name is Oscar Jenkins … 32 years old. Live in Australia and Ukraine.”
Speaking in Ukrainian, he then said he was a teacher and a soldier, before being slapped across the face again.
The footage of Oscar Jenkins, with his wrists bound, was shared widely by pro-Russian social media accounts.Credit: Telegram
This masthead has independently confirmed Jenkins’ identity. He is a former student at Melbourne Grammar, one of Victoria’s most prestigious schools. He graduated in 2010, studied biomedical sciences at Monash University and moved to China in 2015. Since 2017, he has been working as a lecturer at Tianjin college.
It is unclear when he left China and how long he has been fighting with Ukrainian forces on the frontline.
A school friend, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Jenkins was a good person – an intelligent, well-liked classmate who was a “great sportsman”.
Jenkins’ LinkedIn profile lists him as a former member of Toorak-Prahran Cricket Club.
The interrogation footage was first shared by Alexander Sladkov, a Russian propagandist and military correspondent for Russia 1 and Russia 24 TV channels.
He said the Australian would now face trial and prison, while adding Russians were actively hunting for foreign fighters, potentially to secure prisoner swaps. He said if a foreign language was heard in the radio interception, the Ukrainian units were listed as targets.
Under Russia’s criminal code “mercenarism” can attract up to 15 years in prison. The Kremlin is reportedly handling almost 600 criminal cases against foreign fighters – mostly citizens of the United States, Georgia, Great Britain, Canada, Lithuania and Latvia.
Dozens of Australians are believed to be fighting on the front lines in Ukraine’s war against Russia, but the federal government has not been able to provide figures.
At least eight Australians have been killed since Vladimir Putin’s troops launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, including Victorian man Joel Benjamin Stremski, and Queenslanders Brock Greenwood and Matthew Jepson, who died while holding off Russian troops in the country’s east in October.
However, Jenkins is the first Australian known to have been captured by Russian or Russian-aligned forces.
Jenkins’ school friend said he had become “sort of withdrawn” since moving to China and had recently deleted much of his social media.
A passionate vegan, he uploaded a single video to his YouTube channel last year titled: “I will force Chinese people to be vegan.”
“The only people who are friends with me anyway are vegans,” Jenkins says in the video. “If you’re not vegan, and you’re my friend then you’re going to be vegan soon, or we’re gonna fight … and my mum, I’m still talking to my mum. Otherwise, it’s quite limited. There’s some help from the outside from family wanting to do stuff.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Home Affairs have both been contacted for comment.
