Oscar Jenkins, the Australian man reported as killed in captivity by Russian forces in the war in Ukraine, is alive, Penny Wong has said.
The Australian foreign minister announced on Wednesday that the government has confirmed he is being held as a prisoner of war.
“The Australian government has received confirmation from Russia that Oscar Jenkins is alive and in custody,” she said.
“We still hold serious concerns for Mr Jenkins as a prisoner of war.
“We have made clear to Russia in Canberra and in Moscow that Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war and Russia is obligated to treat him in accordance with international humanitarian law, including humane treatment.”
Wong said the Australian government was calling on Russia to release Jenkins.
“If Russia does not provide Mr Jenkins the protections he is entitled to under international humanitarian law, our response will be unequivocal.”
She said she had spoken directly with the Ukrainian foreign minister and to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, “and am grateful for their ongoing advocacy for Mr Jenkins”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular support to Jenkins’s family.
There are few details on Jenkins’s captivity in Russian custody, where he is being held, or the conditions of his incarceration.
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The Guardian understands the Russian ambassador advised that Jenkins is being held in the custody of the Russian Armed Forces, whose members had initially detained him. He is being held on Russian territory, and his health condition is reported as “normal”.
The Australian government is working with Ukraine and the ICRC to push for access to Jenkins to independently verify his welfare and conditions.
In an incendiary statement, Ukrainian ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko said the revelation that Oscar Jenkins was alive was good news for Australians.
“However, that the Russian Federation refused to confirm his status for more than a month – and thereby put his family, friends and fellow Australians through anguish – is typical of that barbarous regime.”
Myroshnychenko said that Russia had been documented as maltreating and killing prisoners of war “as well as constantly lying on an industrial scale”, and could not be taken at its word alone.
The ambassador said Russia should now “provide definitive video proof” that Jenkins was alive. “Then more importantly, it should release him rather than use him as a human bargaining chip for its authoritarian aims.”
Jenkins, a 32-year-old former teacher, travelled to Ukraine and enlisted to fight with the Ukrainian military.
In December, video circulated on pro-Kremlin social media accounts showing Jenkins in what appeared to be Russian captivity. He was dressed in military fatigues with his hands tied and dirt across his face. He is hit in the head by a person off-camera who asks him questions in Russian.
In response, he identified himself as 32-year-old Oscar Jenkins and, speaking in both English and Ukrainian, said he was a biology teacher who lived in Australia and Ukraine.
In the short video, Jenkins was asked why he was in Kramatorsk – in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine – and if he was a mercenary, being paid to fight.
More details soon …
Article by:Source: Ben Doherty and Josh Butler
