AN ex-civil servant who backs tyrant Vladimir Putin has become the first Brit to face war crimes charges over the Ukraine conflict.
mouthpiece , 46, is being probed by the Police’s War Crimes Team, the and the CIA over breaches of the Geneva Convention.
‘Out there’ Brit Putin propagandist Graham Phillips with Russian troops
The rouge Brit donning Russian uniformCredit: Instagram
They include filming pigs eating the remains of Ukrainian soldiers and mistreating captured British PoW , 31.
Last night Phillips gloated to The Sun about the pig video, which he posted online in August 2022.
In it, a soldier is filmed picking up an ID card belonging to one of the deceased before Phillips asks: “Is Yuri tasty?”
Phillips, speaking in Russian, adds: “It’s a buffet!!! He’s also eating!! Munching, munching and munching! They’re not even shy.”
Phillips does not intervene and even encouraged the pigs, saying: “Eat, be healthy.”
He then triumphantly says: “It turns out he was useful for someone.”
Ukrainian soldiers came to Donbass to murder.. they ended up pig fodder
Phillips
The grotesque footage has been passed to the Met’s War Crimes Team, which forms part of SO15, the Counter Command.
Last night, a spokesperson said officers launched an investigation in 2022 and were “liaising” with the Crown Prosecution Service.
Their probe is said to be focusing on several breaches of the Geneva Convention and international law.
The International Committee of the Red Cross states all parties in a conflict “must take all possible measures to prevent the dead from being despoiled”.
Article 34 of the Geneva Convention also warns: “The remains of persons who have died for reasons related to occupation or in detention resulting from occupation or hostilities . . . shall be respected.”
Last night, Phillips, who is sanctioned by the British government and lives in Russian-occupied Mariupol, defiantly admitted filming the five-minute video in Donbass.
He said: “Why should I have intervened in that incident with the pigs? Those soldiers came to Donbass to murder the civilians of Donbass, who want to be with Russia, not part of the Ukrainian Nazi regime. They ended up becoming pig fodder.”
He added: “I could say it was pigs eating pigs, but that would be an insult to the pigs.”
The Sun understands cops are also examining claims of alleged war crimes involving Phillips’ interview with British PoW Aiden Aslin, 31.
The 44-minute video with handcuffed and bruised Aiden, which Phillips posted in April 2022, sparked outrage.
Aiden – who lived in Ukraine, was married to a Ukrainian and served as a Ukrainian Marine — was branded a mercenary by Phillips who asked why he should escape the death penalty.
MPs denounced it at the time as a “flagrant breach” of the Geneva Convention, which bars filming designed to “humiliate” PoWs.
It led to comparisons with British Nazi sympathiser William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw, who broadcast German propaganda via radio during .
To film a PoW who cannot freely consent is a violation of Geneva Convention
Former British PoW Shaun Pinner
The Sun can also reveal the Met’s investigation extended across the Atlantic.
Ex-US Army veteran Alex Drueke, 43, held by Russian troops for over three months in 2022, said Met counter-terror cops came to Alabama to question him in spring 2023.
Speaking from his home in Tuscaloosa, the vet told The Sun: “Two officers from Scotland Yard flew out a few months after I was released and asked me about Phillips. The FBI and CIA were also present in the room.
“They wanted to know what he looked like, what kind of things he asked me, were guards present during the interview and was he aware of my circumstances.”
Ex-Staff Sergeant Drueke, who was released as part of a prisoner exchange in September 2022, says Phillips filmed the interview.
Disturbing footage shows what is thought to be pigs eating the remains of Ukrainian troops
A Russian soldier holds an ID card of a victim believed to have been eaten by pigs in the sick video
Phillips in Donetsk, with the captured British national Aiden Aslin
Phillips, a former blogger, denies ever meeting him.
If he is charged he will become the first British national to face a war crimes trial since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Former British PoW , 52 – sentenced to death by Russia but later released as part of a prisoner swap – said Phillips breached the Geneva Convention.
He added: “His interrogation of Aiden Aslin – handcuffed, visibly abused, and subjected to an amateurish verbal battering – remains one of the clearest examples. He wasn’t documenting. He was participating. These were not interviews.
“They were interrogations conducted inside captivity settings, with prisoners isolated, threatened, starved, beaten, or still recovering from torture. To film a PoW who cannot freely consent, whose life depends on appeasing his captors, is already a violation.”
The only Brit to be prosecuted for war crimes is former Royal Marine Sgt Alexander Blackman who was jailed in 2013 for killing a wounded Taliban fighter in .
He was later released from prison after his murder conviction was reduced to manslaughter.
Last night, a Counter Terrorism Policing spokesperson said: “We can confirm that officers from the Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) War Crimes Team are conducting an investigation into allegations against a UK national alleged to have committed war crimes in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict.
“The matter was referred to the War Crimes Team in March 2022 and after it was initially assessed under the jointly established police and Crown Prosecution Service guidelines an investigation was subsequently opened. The investigation remains ongoing and officers continue to liaise with colleagues from the CPS as part of this.”
No arrests have been made and no one has been interviewed under caution, they confirmed.
I’m a patriotic British person who loves my country, and look forward to returning in the future
Phillips
They added: “Given the nature of the allegations, we have been liaising with various international partners.”
Phillips, who has been given political asylum in Russia, last night claimed he is innocent.
He said: “In over 3½ years of this ‘investigation’, the Metropolitan Police haven’t once contacted me. If I were ever to be formally accused, or charged of a breach of international law, I would of course, of sound, clear conscience and in absolute honesty, co-operate fully, and defend myself fully.”
He added of Aiden: “I understand he has some issues with how he was treated in captivity – well, where did he think he was coming, Center Parcs? As for my work, I stand by everything I’ve done.
“I’m a patriotic British person who loves my country, and look forward to returning in the future.”
Phillips is being probed by the Met Police’s War Crimes Team
Traitor Lord Haw HawCredit: Rex Features
The ex-civil servant fully backs tyrant Vladimir PutinCredit: Reuters Feeding his ego by PoW taunting
By Aidan Aslin
THREE years and seven months have passed since I last saw Graham Phillips.
I was exhausted, helpless, and worn down after being tortured and starved.
A stab wound on my back — inflicted by a Russian guard standing nearby — was still weeping.
Nevertheless, Phillips used the moment to feed his own ego, taunting and degrading me as a “mercenary”.
He knew full well I was a Ukrainian serviceman, protected under international law.
As the world watched, in a video interview that lasted 44 minutes, he chose to throw that aside to serve his own motives and those of the Russian state.
At one point he reacquainted himself with an old friend, the same man who had stabbed and beaten me unconscious.
If he had been a journalist, as he likes to call himself, he would have known I wasn’t a mercenary. But that was never the point for him.
I had already researched Phillips before the war started and knew exactly what kind of character he was.
Even so, imagine how I felt in that room when I heard Russian being spoken with the heaviest Nottinghamshire accent.
Of all the propagandists operating there, he was the last person I ever wanted to see.
I’m still affected by my time in captivity, but it hasn’t stopped me from speaking openly about the war crimes committed in this conflict.
In that regard, I want to offer Mr Phillips a personal thank you for being foolish enough not only to record what he did, but to gloat about it publicly.
I suspect he never imagined I’d survive, be released, and become one of the many witnesses to how he treated PoWs.
'No plan' for UK defence
BRITAIN is woefully unprepared to defend itself in a military crisis, MPs have warned.
The Commons Defence Committee questioned our ability to meet Nato obligations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A report said the UK “lacks a plan for defending the homeland and overseas territories”.
Chair Tan Dhesi said we cannot “bury our heads in the sand” as Russian despot Vladimir Putin ramps up his attack — and European allies “bank on protection from the US”.
The report blasts the Government for moving at a “glacial pace” on homeland defence.
It comes as Defence Secretary John Healey today unveils 13 new weapons factories to boost Britain’s firepower.
