As the meal was over, Mr. Ashlin also called his friend Brennan Phillips, 36, an American, on Tuesday. He told Phillips that his commander was planning to surrender and that he was going to destroy his phone. Mr Phillips said: “The last thing he said to me was, ‘Please do not let them forget me.’ He said Mr Aslin was a former caregiver for the elderly and disabled and had become a volunteer fighter “for the right reasons”. On Thursday night, Robert Asnrik, a Member of Parliament for Aslin in Newark, accused Russia of violating the Geneva Conventions, telling the Telegraph: “It must be properly treated by the Russian authorities. The use of images of prisoners of war for propaganda is completely unacceptable.” Russia, meanwhile, said on Thursday that the flagship of its damaged Black Sea Fleet had sunk after Ukraine claimed it had hit the ship with rockets. The Kremlin said the Moskva crew was evacuated after it was set on fire by an ammunition bomb. Western officials have disputed that explanation for the damage. An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strike as a “massive moment” in the war. A senior US official said several other Russian warships off the coast of Ukraine had moved further into the sea after the incident. Moskva – the warship said to go “alone” on the first day of the invasion by provocative Ukrainian soldiers, provided air cover for the rest of the fleet.
