Thugs holding British militants captured in Ukraine forced them to call The Sun and beg for their lives

RUSSIA-backed thugs who held two British militants captured in Ukraine forced them to call The Sun and beg for their lives before pleading for their lives before their kangaroo trial, we can now reveal.

Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin both called our editors with essentially the same written requests.

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They warned over a satellite phone that they could face the death penalty if the demands of the Kremlin’s henchmen who are holding them were not met.

Voice shaking with emotion, Shaun told The Sun he faces 20 years in prison or death after being accused of being an “illegal combatant”.

He added, “We’re scared.”

It was feared that the couple, who were captured in Mariupol, had called at gunpoint on April 25, in violation of the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Prisoners of War.

Over the next four weeks, they called our office six more times with similar scripted messages.

But The Sun has been urged by State Department chiefs not to publish their pleas, although they have agreed not to detail the demands of their Russian captors.

Shaun’s mother Denise Price, 65, who was also called, said: “It appears he is being used for propaganda.” The State Department declined to comment last night.