An Australian man captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine has been jailed for 13 years on the charge of being a “mercenary”, a move that has “appalled” the Australian government.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said on Saturday that Russia was obliged to treat Oscar Jenkins humanely as he was “a full serving member of the regular armed forces of Ukraine” and therefore “a prisoner of war”.
Wong accused Russia of conducting a “sham trial” of Jenkins, a 33-year-old man from Melbourne.
Jenkins was convicted of being a “mercenary in an armed conflict” and sentenced on Friday to 13 years “in a strict regime penal colony” by a Russian-controlled court in Ukraine’s east Luhansk region.
“The Australian government is appalled at the sham trial and 13-year sentence given to Australian man Oscar Jenkins,” Wong said in a statement.
“The Australian government has made clear to Russia that Mr Jenkins must be given the protections afforded to him as a prisoner of war. Russia is obligated to treat him in accordance with international humanitarian law, including humane treatment.
“We continue to hold serious concerns for Mr Jenkins.”
Wong said the government was working with Ukraine and other partners including the International Committee of the Red Cross to advocate for his welfare and release, and providing consular support to Jenkins’ family.
Russia and its eastern Ukrainian proxies consider foreigners travelling to fight in Ukraine as mercenaries.
This enables them to prosecute them under its criminal code, rather than treating them as captured prisoners of war with protections and rights under the Geneva conventions.
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The Australian government has repeatedly called on Russia to release Jenkins, a former biology teacher.
Russia-installed prosecutors said Jenkins “took part in combat operations against Russian military personnel between March and December 2024”.
They posted a video showing Jenkins standing in a courtroom behind a glass cage, his hands behind his back and his expression despondent.
Russian forces captured Jenkins in December 2024.
In that same month, he appeared in a video shared by a Russian military blogger showing him being roughly interrogated and beaten.
In the video, Jenkins had his hands bound with what appears to be tape or plastic. He is wearing military fatigues and has dirt on his face. Answering in English and broken Ukrainian, he says he is 32 years old and lives in Australia and Ukraine.
“I’m Australian,” Jenkins says in English. “Oscar Jenkins. 32 years old … I study biology.”
A man behind the camera appears to strike Jenkins twice in the head with a stick as he is questioned in Russian.
He was then believed to have been killed in captivity, until Russia confirmed he was alive in January.
A later video showed him undergoing a medical examination, with his captors heard joking in the background that his blood pressure showed “he wasn’t dead”.
