Albanese reassures that Australia has not given up on Oscar Jenkins

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said Oscar Jenkins has not been abandoned as the Australian man stands trial on mercenary charges in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Lugansk.

The eastern region’s Moscow-installed authorities said on Friday that prosecutors had approved a criminal indictment against the 33-year-old.

Jenkins could face a jail term of up to 15 years if convicted, the ABC has reported.

Asked on Saturday whether Australia had abandoned Jenkins, Anthony Albanese said: “We certainly have not.”

“[Australia will] continue to make representations to the reprehensible regime of Vladimir Putin on behalf of Mr Jenkins,” he said, in what is the latest of many calls to release the former biology teacher.

A this man wearing faded blue jeans and a yellow and blue jackets holds up a book.

Authorities in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Lugansk released a photo of Australian man Oscar Jenkins after laying charges against him this week. Credit: Luhansk People’s Republic Prosecutor’s Office.

“We will stand up and use whatever avenues we have at our disposal to continue to make those representations.”

He said Australia remained committed to Ukraine’s fight “for the international rule of law” and reaffirmed that his government would consider sending troops to support a Europe-led peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

Russian investigators allege Jenkins came to Ukraine in February 2024 from Melbourne and then fought against the Russian army between March and December 2024, for which he was paid around $US7,000-9,000 a month.

After his capture, Jenkins first appeared in a video shared by a Russian military blogger in December 2024, in which he was filmed being roughly interrogated under duress and slapped in the face.

He was then believed to have been killed in captivity, until Russia confirmed he was alive and later posted a video of the frail Australian’s medical examination, with the captors heard joking in the background that his blood pressure showed “he wasn’t dead”.

“We’ve made it clear to Russia that Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war and that there are obligations that kick in in accordance with international humanitarian law and they must be observed,” Albanese told ABC Radio Sydney after the examination video was released.

Russia and its eastern Ukraine proxies typically consider foreigners travelling to fight in Ukraine as “mercenaries”.

This enables them to prosecute fighters under its criminal code, rather than treating them as captured prisoners of war with protections and rights under the Geneva Convention.

Jenkins is only the latest foreign soldier fighting for Ukraine to appear before the court.

Most recently, British man James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, was charged with terrorism after he was caught in the Kursk region fighting on Ukraine’s side.

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