A video purporting to show the Russian capture of an Australian man fighting for Ukraine on the war’s eastern front has prompted urgent enquiries from Australia’s federal government.
The man, who identified himself as Oscar Jenkins, is struck several times and questioned roughly in Russian in the video, circulating on messaging service Telegram. The Nine newspapers, which first broke the video, reported the footage had been first shared by Russian journalist Alexander Sladkov.
Foreign minister Penny Wong’s office was contacted for comment. Guardian Australia understands federal officials were working to verify the authenticity of the video and details of the man involved; the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, noted that Russian forces sometimes seeded incorrect information.
“This is concerning news, and we’re working through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to provide support, including, for this gentleman, trying to ascertain the details and the facts which are there,” he said at a press conference on Monday morning.
“We know that the Russians often put out information that isn’t right. So our embassy in Moscow is working. But in addition to that, Foreign Affairs and Trade are working here as well.”
In the video, Jenkins has 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 Russian, 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.
Albanese said the government would “make appropriate representations” to Russian authorities.
“We always look after Australians. That’s the job of an Australian Government, is to make representations for Australian citizens,” he said.
Social media profiles under the name Oscar Jenkins appeared to show the same man running a cross country race in Hong Kong in 2017, wearing a singlet with the slogan “go vegan”, as well as a YouTube video from 2023 titled “I WILL FORCE CHINESE PEOPLE TO BE VEGAN”. In that video, the man spoke about wanting to talk to people about veganism.
A LinkedIn page under the name Oscar Jenkins showed a profile picture of a text graphic saying “Vegan Ukraine” superimposed over a map of the country, and the words “righteous soldier” and “destroy evil be good”.
That page, which did not carry a photo of the user’s face, described Oscar Jenkins as a “Marketing Consultant and university lecturer”, with an employment history including as a lecturer at the Tianjin Modern Vocational Technology College in China, a foreign language teacher at another Chinese school and several positions in Melbourne as recently as 2015 – including working at a Toorak club and as a junior cricket coach.
In a version of the interrogation video posted to Sladkov’s Telegram page, a caption written in Russian and translated to English stated “our biologist was caught from Australia”.
“What is this guy doing? Who is this guy?” the caption read.
“I hope everything will be fine with the guy, trial, hard labor, everything as it should be. I understand the Ukrainian prisoners. But what is this guy doing here?”
More to come.
