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

Russia has sentenced 30-year-old Briton Hayden Davies to 13 years in a maximum-security prison camp, accusing him of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine in Donetsk. The court did not disclose his plea, while Moscow says he was captured with weapons and ammunition in winter 2024.

Reuters

18 December 2025 at 09:43:14

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

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban gestures as he arrives at a European Union leaders' summit in Brussels, Belgium, December 18, 2025.

Yves Herman/Reuters

A British man who Moscow says 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 office of Russia's Prosecutor General named the jailed Briton as 30-year-old Hayden Davies and 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.

The Russian statement did not say how Davies had pleaded.

It said Davies had arrived in western Ukraine in August 2024, signed a contract to fight for the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine, undergone military training, and then fought against the Russian army in Donetsk.

Davies had been captured by Russia in winter 2024 carrying a U.S.-made assault rifle and ammunition, it said.