The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) sentenced two British men and a Moroccan to death on Thursday for being mercenaries who tried to overthrow the government of this largely unrecognized country. The US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) is already going wild claiming that it was nothing but a so-called “show trial”, yet these foreign citizens were indeed captured in Mariupol and thus far away from their British and Moroccan homelands. They weren’t there to support the freedom fighters but to literally kill them at Kiev’s behest for whatever personal reason drove them to going to war on its side.

Nobody can therefore credibly deny that those foreigners are mercenaries, but nevertheless, the US-led West still doesn’t want them to get executed. There’s close to no likelihood that the Moroccan authorities will do much to support their sentenced citizen because they probably want the world to forget that one of their men was fighting there but the UK is an altogether different matter since it has a direct stake in the outcome of the US-led NATO proxy war on Russia through Ukraine within which two of its citizens were participating.

The wrinkle, however, is that London doesn’t recognize Donetsk so it therefore can’t enter into formal negotiations with it over their futures. There’s a chance, however slim, that they might ask for clemency and thus be pardoned to 25 years in jail instead of executed but this scenario of course can’t be taken for granted. That being the case, the UK has to urgently decide whether to formally recognize the DPR in an attempt to save its two men’s lives or leave them to die, though their demise could always be spun for anti-Russian information warfare purposes if it ultimately ends up happening.

It’s unclear what the British public truly thinks about the Ukrainian Conflict since polls there can’t be trusted in this de facto wartime environment nor can it be discounted that dissidents aren’t self-censoring out of fear of political harassment or worse for their beliefs. Be that as it may, it’s probably the case that the average Brit doesn’t want to see their boys executed in a foreign land, let alone possibly even in a public fashion depending on how that process plays out in the largely unrecognized republic. For this reason, they might band together to pressure their leaders to save their men’s lives.

The UK has a lot on the line in this situation since its failure to do anything in support of its sentenced citizens would send a very uncomfortable signal to others that their government won’t support them if they go to fight in foreign lands in the name of “democracy” or whatever else that their authorities have brainwashed them into believing is worth possibly even dying for. It’s one thing to die on the battlefield in support of whatever cause one truly believes in and another to be executed after being captured by one’s opponents as a mercenary to whom the Geneva Convention doesn’t legally apply.

Nobody should get their hopes up that London will recognize Donetsk though since doing so would be a diplomatic earthquake that Washington’s junior partner would never unilaterally do on its own, nor does it seem probable that its overlord will allow it to. For that reason, unless the DPR feels that it can gain something politically worthwhile by granting clemency to those convicted mercenaries who tried to carry out regime change against their republic, it’s very possible that they’ll be executed, but it remains to be seen whether this will be done in public as a deterrent to other mercenaries or not.

One Moroccan And Two British Mercenaries Who Fought For Kiev, Sentenced To Death By Donbass Supreme Court