British hero Shaun Pinner who fought Russia at Mariupol has slammed Donald Trump‘s peace plan as ‘surrender dressed up as diplomacy’.
The former Royal Anglian soldier who was captured by Moscow told the Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s repugnant. I’m sick with anger.
‘This so-called 28-point ‘peace plan’ reads less like a strategy for a just, durable settlement and more like an attempt to appease Putin, a blueprint to tie Ukraine’s hands, strip away its right to defend itself, and reward an aggressor with no intention of stopping.
‘A peace plan that protects the perpetrator and punishes the victim isn’t peace. It’s surrender dressed up as diplomacy.’
Pinner, 51, served in the British military from 17 and moved to Ukraine in 2018 to help rebuild its military after Russia annexed Crimea and invaded the Donbas in 2014.
He defended Mariupol following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and was finally captured two months later after a heroic defence.
Pinner was starved, tortured and sentenced to death before Roman Abramovich helped secure his freedom that September.
He has stayed in Ukraine with wife Laryssa, whom he met out there, and says Kyiv can still defeat Putin if the West stands firm.
‘We’re not just giving them a bloody nose, we’ve got them on the ropes,’ he said. ‘We’re giving them a few right uppercuts.’
Shaun Pinner (pictured) was captured by Russian forces during the siege of Mariupol in April 2022
He has since branded Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan for Ukraine as ‘surrender dressed up as diplomacy’
Referring to the daring operation to send lorries laden with drones deep into Russian territory that took out some of Putin’s most valuable bombers, Pinner said: ‘They’ve had a standing count with things like Operation Spiderweb.
‘They aren’t dominant at the Black Sea anymore. And now we’re looking at Russia being bombed pretty much daily now.’
On Ukrainian morale, he said: ‘There is a fight. There is a will to fight. Ukrainians have not given up. People are tired. Things like the corruption scandal are not helping.
‘But again, I tell people that’s a working democracy. However, I do have reservations about the number of troops we have.’
While Russia has claimed to take Pokrovsk in recent weeks, a key city in the Donbas, Pinner doubts the claim but said even if they have it is not the major victory Moscow claims.
He said Putin’s forces outnumbered Ukraine ‘eight to one’ on the city and defending it is part of the ‘strategic plan’ to ‘exhaust the enemy’s ability to push on’.
‘You’ve got to keep the motivation to keep going with the goal, which is to drain the enemy of its resources so that Kyiv might live,’ he said.
‘I was there a year ago in November, one year ago, and the Russians were eight kilometres out. And if you just take the bare facts of the last year, they have just got eight kilometres into the city, at an incredibly detrimental cost.
Shaun Pinner stayed in Ukraine with his wife Laryssa (pictured) who he met in the eastern European country
‘There is a fight. There is a will to fight. Ukrainians have not given up,’ Pinner (pictured behind bars on June 8, 2022) said of the Ukrainian will
‘And if they do take Pokrovsk, it’s going to be extremely hard for them to move on. They’re going to be completely exhausted, completely depleted. And you’ve got winter coming.’
While much of the media has focused on Ukraine’s morale being low with winter coming amid the corruption scandal that has rocked Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, Pinner is insistent Moscow is suffering more.
‘Putin wants that trophy,’ he said. ‘He needs that trophy to show it to the Russians. I think it’s totally under-reported, the pressure Putin is under.
‘You look at the pressure his economy is under. He needs Pokrovsk, he needs a victory, because otherwise he’s going to go into the winter where it all slows down.
‘You’re going to have the bitter winter, and all he’s going to go away with this year is body bags, coffins, not really any gains.’
