Shaun Pinner, a former British soldier who took up arms against Russian forces in Mariupol, has strongly criticized Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan, branding it as “surrender disguised as diplomacy.”
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Pinner, who once served in the Royal Anglian Regiment and was later captured by Russian forces, expressed his outrage. “It’s appalling. I’m filled with anger,” he remarked.
Pinner argued that the so-called 28-point peace proposal seems less like a pathway to a fair and lasting resolution and more like an effort to placate Putin. “It appears to be a scheme to undermine Ukraine’s right to self-defense and to reward an aggressor who shows no signs of halting,” he asserted.
“A genuine peace plan should not protect the aggressor while penalizing the victim,” Pinner emphasized. “What we’re seeing is not peace; it’s surrender masked as diplomacy.”
Now 51, Pinner joined the British military at 17 and relocated to Ukraine in 2018 with the aim of aiding in the country’s military rebuilding efforts following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbas in 2014.
He valiantly defended Mariupol during the large-scale invasion by Russian forces in February 2022, eventually being captured two months later after a courageous stand.
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.’
