Russia sentences Briton who fought for Ukraine to 13 years in prison camp

The defendant named by the office of Russia's Prosecutor General as Hayden Davies, a 30-year-old British citizen convicted of being a paid mercenary fighting for Ukraine against the Russian army amid the military conflict, attends a court hearing in Donetsk, a Russian-controlled city of Ukraine, in this still image from video released December 18, 2025. Russian Prosecutor General's Office/Handout via REUTERS

MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) - A British man who fought for Ukraine against the Russian army has been sentenced to 13 years in a maximum security prison camp after being convicted of being a paid mercenary, Russian prosecutors said on Thursday.

The jailed Briton was named as 30-year-old Hayden Davies by Russia's Prosecutor General which said he had been tried by a court in a part of Russian-controlled Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian regions which Moscow claimed as its own in 2022 in a move Kyiv and the West rejected an illegal land grab.