SHAUN Pinner was a retired and decorated British soldier, living a peaceful and happy life in Mariupol with his Ukrainian family when Putin’s forces invaded in February 2022.
The Hertfordshire-born ex-squaddie signed up to fight for his adopted home, explaining that he saw it as “a battle between good and evil” – only to be captured by Russian forces in April 2022.
In an exclusive interview yesterday Shaun revealed how calls to the Sun news desk during his six months captivity helped keep him sane.
And now, in extracts from his new book, he reveals in chilling detail how he was subjected to sadistic torture by men he believes were Russian Spetsnaz special forces operatives.
'State of shock'
More and more questions were yelled out, but the words came at me too quickly.
I couldn’t respond. I was stuttering, in a state of shock, my jaw still throbbing from an earlier beating.
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Then, in my peripheral vision, I caught the shimmer of a blade. It was moving in front of me at speed and in a scything motion.
Before I could react, it had torn into my thigh and carved along the side of my leg. The steel was nearly down to the bone. Finally it twisted.
I stared down at the wound in horror and screamed. A large chunk of flesh had been sheared away like kebab meat and was dangling grimly.
Blood pumped and pooled on the floor and any hopes of getting through the first phase of capture unharmed were now done with.
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There was a good chance I might be killed here and now. My wife Larysa’s mantra looped around my head. Live. Fight. Survive!
It was the only thing distancing me from the pain.
Someone was laughing at me. ‘Whoops – sorry.’
Then the questions came in again. It felt like someone was taking a hammer to my brain.
‘Who are you?’
‘Listen, my name’s Shaun. Wait—’
‘Who are you fighting for?’
‘I’m a Ukrainian Marine . . .’
‘Are you MI6 or SAS?’
‘Mate, I’m nearly fifty years old. Please . . .’
It was hard to focus. The pain in my leg was now spreading outwards; every nerve ending in my body felt pinched and my vision had blurred. Nausea washed over me.
Then somebody grabbed my shoulders and I heard the ripping and tearing of masking tape.
When I looked down, one of the operators had wrapped my thigh in an old blue T-shirt and was clumsily sticking it across the wound. Within seconds it had soaked through with blood.
I was hooded, then dragged and bundled into the back of a Toyota RAV4.
When the shivers started, I knew the shock of what was happening had kicked in.
One of the soldiers whispered in my ear. ‘Don’t move or we will shoot you . . .’
Like that was going to happen, I could barely hold myself upright.
'Stank of death'
Despite the physical and emotional trauma, I needed to gather as much information about the journey as possible, as I’d been trained to do.
There was only one route in and out of Mariupol in this area, and I doubted very much they were taking me back there.
Instead, we were heading towards the city of Donetsk, which was under Russian occupation.
After thirty minutes, the car pulled over and I was hauled from the vehicle like an oversized bag of shopping.
As I was forced through more doors and more corridors, my feeling was that I’d been taken to a former Ukrainian police station.
The Russian special forces were probably using it as an operational area. Then I was left in what looked like a bathroom.
The place was dank; it stank of death, but there was no sink, toilet or shower. My chest tightened with fear.
In the floor was a circular drain hole, positioned so that any trace of blood or teeth, even toes or fingers, could be washed away with a hose.
People suffered and died in places like this. I’m f***ed, I thought.
A bloke in a tracksuit stepped in front of me and lifted up the hood they had placed on me..
He was holding a laptop and seemed to be cross-checking my face against whatever social-media platform he had logged onto.
Then my hood was yanked down again and I was forced into a chair. Someone strapped my wrists and ankles with tape to the wooden legs and the seatback.
Through the gap in the bag over my head, I clocked the boots of people walking around me. There were at least four others in the room.
A Ukrainian flag was being draped around my shoulders. The fear that I was about to be executed had intensified.
This is going to be filmed and my death will be used as propaganda.
I felt my hands being pulled and when I looked around, one of the special forces operators was attaching a set of plastic paddles to my fingers.
There was a moment’s pause, some footfalls and a click. And — Dit-dit-dit-dit-dit!
Without any warning, a blast of electricity ripped into my body.
The pain was even more intense than the wound in my leg and I was forced upright in a hyperactive spasm, my bones locking rigid.
Every muscle expanded, clenched and threatened to burst.
The blast can only have lasted fifteen seconds or so, but it felt like minutes, and when the power was turned off I deflated back into my chair, twitching and drooling, my neck unable to support the weight of my skull, my chin lolling across my chest.
Saliva and snot dripped into my lap. The shouting started again soon after.
‘Who are you?’
‘Who are you fighting for?’
‘Are you MI6 or SAS?’
I heard a word or two being repeated over and over, and over.
My whole body rattled with the numbing, metallic echo of live electricity. One of the operators lifted my hood.
He was clicking through my social-media pages. I saw photos from happier times – with friends and family, on holidays.
Then he stopped and pointed to a picture from my days as a sniper trainer. I was on operations and holding a rifle. ‘I see you have a Light Fifty?’ The guy knew his stuff.
The weapon was a Barrett .50 rifle, which was popular with a lot of military marksmen.
‘I’m not a sniper.’
‘Your pictures tell other stories . . .’
‘I’m not a sniper. I get pictures with weapons all the time. I’m Marines.’
‘You’re a sniper and a Nazi . . .’
‘I’m not a Nazi! You have my ID, I’m not a sniper!’
I heard another voice behind me.
‘You should not be here in this war.’
Looking up, I suddenly realised that the paddles clipped to my digits were probably attached to a field telephone.
Agonising torture
It was known that the Russians plugged them into the mains as a repurposed torture device. My suspicions were confirmed moments later.
‘Oh, Shaun . . . You want to phone home to your wife?’
I tried to shake my head, but my neck muscles couldn’t respond.
‘No. ‘Please—’
Dit-dit-dit-dit-dit! The staccato snap, crackle and pop of barely tethered electricity ripped through the air, leaping from the telephone box and lightning-striking the paddles.
My body was gripped with power, lurching and tightening. Veins seemed to be exploding all over my back and neck.
Two, maybe three more blasts of electricity followed until, eventually, I blacked out from the pain.
I’m not sure exactly how long I was tortured for. It’s hard to guess, and if someone had told me the agony had lasted for days, I’d have believed it.
But I wasn’t broken. When I came to, a 9 mm pistol was shoved into the back of my head and I felt unafraid.
‘I’ve made my peace,’ I whispered. ‘If you’re going to do it, do it . . .’
I heard the clicking of an empty chamber and felt the crack of steel on bone as a pistol whipped across the back of my head.
When I looked up, my captors were laughing. Human suffering was a joke to them.
I know what you’re thinking: Did he p*** himself? The answer is no, though I must have come close.
Still, I took pride in the fact I was able to hold my bladder together through the torture, but I knew that more psychological misery was inevitable.
The Russians had found my identity. They had my social-media profile and with it a contacts book of loved ones – people who could be emotionally tortured from afar, for fun.
Sure enough, a smartphone was shoved into my face shortly afterwards.
On the screen was a video of me in a chair with a Ukrainian flag draped around my shoulders.
I was bucking and lurching with live electricity.
An image of my passport appeared. The word ‘deceased’ had been stamped over the top.
‘You’re dead on the internet,’ whispered a voice.
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I had no doubt the abuse I’d experienced would be in the inbox of every friend and family member within minutes.
Extracted from Live. Fight. Survive: One Soldier’s Extraordinary Story of the War against Russia by Shaun Pinner, published on September 28
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