The Foreign Ministry said it accused two British men of being captured by Russian troops and charged with mercenaries in Ukraine for political exploitation of prisoners of war and civilians.
Cambridgeshire aid worker Dylan Healy, 22, and volunteer Andrew Hill, 35, have been charged with conducting “mercenary activities,” according to Russian state media Tass.
The outlet reported that both men refused to work with the investigators.
The Foreign, Commonwealth Development Agency (FCDO) is understood to be actively investigating and is supporting male families.
A spokeswoman for FCDO said:
“We are in constant contact with the Government of Ukraine on their cases and are fully supporting Ukraine in their efforts to release them.”
This was after a video aired on Russian television in April, after a man speaking with an English accent that appeared to be named Andrew Hill in Plymouth.
According to the Kremlin-backed website, Healy and Hill will face the same mercenary charges as two British volunteers, Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner, captured in Mariupol, who were sentenced to death in Donetsk.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Thursday intervened in Mr. Aslin and Mr. Pinner’s case.
A Strathbourg-based court has told Moscow that Aslin, 28, originally from Newark, Nottinghamshire, and Pinner, 48, from Bedfordshire, should be sentenced to death.
Mr Aslin and Mr Pinner lived in Ukraine before the invasion, and the British government argued that they should be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention as legitimate members of the Ukrainian army.
It is the latest action by the government on Wednesday against allies of Russian leaders to impose sanctions on Russia’s second wealthiest man, Vladimir Putinin and Vladimir Putin’s cousin Anna Zibirewa. It was after the announcement.
Mr. Potanin is the owner of the Interros Conglomerate.
Ms Tsivileva is the president of the JSC Colmar Group coal mining company.