Australian to stand trial in Russian-occupied Ukraine on mercenary charges
'The Prosecutor's Office of the Lugansk People's Republic approved the indictment in the criminal case against 33-year-old citizen of the Commonwealth of Australia Oscar Charles Augustus Jenkins,' the authorities said in a statement.
According to the investigators, Jenkins came to Ukraine in February 2024 from Melbourne and then fought against the Russian army between March and December 2024, for which he was paid around $7,000-9,000 a month.
Russia and its eastern Ukraine proxies typically consider foreigners traveling to fight in Ukraine as 'mercenaries.'
This enables them to prosecute fighters under its criminal code, rather than treating them as captured prisoners of war with protections and rights under the Geneva Convention.
Most recently British man James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, was charged with terrorism after he was caught in the Kursk region fighting on Ukraine's side.
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