Published:
11:15 a.m. July 2, 2022

A Cambridgeshire aid worker, who traveled to Ukraine ‘to try to make a difference’, has reportedly been charged with being a mercenary and could face the death penalty.

Dylan Healy, a 22-year-old chef from Huntingdon, is one of two men to be charged with “mercenary activities”, according to Russian state media.

A pro-Kremlin website said Mr Healy and military volunteer Andrew Hill would face the same mercenary charges as Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, two British military volunteers captured in Mariupol, who were sentenced to death in Donetsk.

Mr Healey disappeared in Ukraine, along with Paul Urey, 45, in April.

Both were part of a British non-profit humanitarian organization named Presidium Network.

The men were reportedly captured by the Russian army, after being stopped and detained at a military checkpoint south of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine.

They had tried to help a mother and her children flee the area.

Allan Moore, a friend of Mr Healy for three years, told ITV Anglia last month he was shocked by the arrests.

Mr Moore told ITV Anglia at the time: “I’m still in my mind thinking it’s a joke and he’ll be fine, but at the same time seeing the way Putin and some of the ways the Russia has already treated people, it’s quite inhumane”.

Mr Moore used to play football with Mr Healy for the Huntingdon Rangers Sunday League side.

He thinks his friend went to Ukraine “to try to help and make a difference”.

Russian state media reports that the two men were refusing to cooperate with investigators.

He also inferred that Mr. Healy and Mr. Hill would face the same mercenary charges as Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner.

Mr. Aslin and Mr. Pinner were sentenced to death in Donetsk, after the capture of British military volunteers in Mariupol.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), intervened Thursday, June 30, indicated in Moscow that it should ensure that the death penalty is not carried out in this case.

Mr. Aslin and Mr. Pinner lived in Ukraine before the invasion and the British government insisted that, as legitimate members of the Ukrainian armed forces, they should be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.