Shaun Pinner held Mariupol for seven weeks with the Ukrainian Marines until the ammunition, food and water ran out. Trying to reach friendly lines in April 2022, he was captured about two hours outside the city. Over the next seven months he was stabbed in the leg, electrocuted repeatedly, starved, held for 60 days in an underground black site, put on camera by Russian state TV, and sentenced to death in a show trial before he was exchanged.

In this conversation, Shaun walks through each stage of capture as it happened to him, and what his SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) did and did not prepare him for. He explains why he started looking for “small victories,” why soldiers are taught never to rely on hope, why you should never claim to be a cook or a medic, and why he refuses to be a victim. He also compares what he endured with the conditions he has seen for Russian prisoners held in Ukraine, and describes the foreign fighters, some trafficked from Africa, who end up in Russia’s army.

Shaun served nine years in the British military, including Bosnia and Northern Ireland, before moving to Ukraine, marrying a Ukrainian and joining the Ukrainian Marines. He now teaches resistance-to-interrogation to Western militaries and co-hosts Voices From The Front with me. His documentary with Aiden Aslin is Captured.

The first 27 minutes are the week’s news. The captivity account begins at 27:48.

Chapters

27:48 What to take from tonight

28:59 SERE training, and why you can't train for pain

32:07 What SERE actually teaches

34:08 Captured outside Mariupol: the walk toward the enemy

36:24 "I wasn't captured, I was mugged"

38:18 Reading your captors from under a hood

39:36 A knife in the leg

40:46 The tiled-floor room and the electrodes

45:26 "We're going to sell you to the Chechens": the first small victory

47:12 Why the military never relies on hope

49:14 Never say you're the cook or the medic

50:25 A 45-minute lesson on British newspapers

52:06 Starvation as torture

55:26 On camera: "Did you bring the weapons in from the UK?"

56:26 Breaking the Superman complex

57:15 Paul Urey and John Harding

1:00:07 Learning the Moskva had been sunk

1:01:17 Sixty days underground, three men in a broom cupboard

1:02:56 How Russian prisoners are held in Ukraine

1:07:59 "We have to be better"

1:09:19 The RT interview: "So you're a bit of a Nazi"

1:11:38 A Wagner convict and the foreign fighters

1:13:05 How men from Africa end up in Russia's army

1:17:16 Character, and the pressure you put on yourself

1:19:35 Steven Seagal at Makiivka after Olenivka

1:20:58 The day he broke down

1:21:29 Harry Potter, The Great Gatsby, and hunger

1:23:04 Reporting on returning defenders, carefully

1:24:15 Beaten on his last day before the exchange

1:26:54 "Don't ever be the victim"

1:28:18 The death sentence and the show trial

1:28:44 Crocus City Hall and confessions made by torture

1:32:16 Turning captivity into teaching

1:33:39 Advice for families who are waiting

1:37:31 Coming home to a world that moved on

1:39:31 What viewers can do: the ripple effect

1:41:20 Filtration camps

1:43:00 Time is life

1:45:31 Watch "Captured"

Watch on YouTube, with corrected captions: Captured at Mariupol: Shaun Pinner on Russian Torture, Interrogation and Survival

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Captured at Mariupol: Shaun Pinner on…