Disturbing moment Australian teacher fighting in the Ukraine is grilled and beaten after being captured by Russian troops

A former Melbourne school teacher caught fighting as part of Ukraine’s foreign legion has been paraded on camera by Russian soldiers. 

Biology teacher Oscar Jenkins, 32, is a former Melbourne Grammar student who travelled to Ukraine to join its war effort. 

In disturbing video uploaded to the social media platform Telegram, Mr Jenkins was seen bound and forced to his knees by his captors. 

Speaking in a mix of English and broken Ukrainian, his captor slapped him in the face while demanding he answer questions being peppered at him in Russian.  

‘Where are you from?’ the soldier asked him.

Unable to understand, Mr Jenkins looked confused before he was slapped by his captor.

‘F*** speaker faster,’ the Russian said.

When asked his nationality, Mr Jenkins replied: ‘I’m Australian.’

Dressed in military gear with dirt smeared on his face, Mr Jenkins was repeatedly asked about why he was in Kramatorsk, almost 700 kilometres east of Kyiv.

The Russian soldier demanded to know if Mr Jenkins was being paid by the Ukraine to wage war on its behalf. 

Under Russia’s criminal code ‘mercenarism’ can attract up to 15 years in prison. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese labelled news of the capture as ‘concerning’. 

‘So our embassy in Moscow is working. But in addition to that, Foreign Affairs and Trade are working here as well,’ he said.

‘We always look after Australians. That’s the job of an Australian government — to make representations for Australian citizens.’

The Kremlin is reportedly handling almost 600 criminal cases against foreign fighters – mostly citizens of the United States, Georgia, Great Britain, Canada, Lithuania and Latvia.

Dozens of Australians are believed to be fighting on the front lines in Ukraine’s war against Russia, but the federal government has not been able to provide figures.

‘My name is Oscar Jenkins … 32 years old. Live in Australia and Ukraine,’ Mr Jenkins claimed. 

It is understood Mr Jenkins was indeed telling his captors the truth, with The Age confirming he was a former student at Melbourne Grammar, one of Victoria’s most prestigious schools. 

He graduated in 2010, studied biomedical sciences at Monash University and moved to China in 2015, it reported.

Since 2017, he has been working as a lecturer at Tianjin college.

It is unclear when he left China and how long he has been fighting with Ukrainian forces on the frontline.

A school friend told the publication Mr Jenkins was a good person who had been an intelligent, well-liked classmate and ‘great sportsman’ who represented the first XI cricket and first XVII football teams.

Mr Jenkins’ LinkedIn profile lists him as a former member of Toorak-Prahran Cricket Club.

His mate claimed Mr Jenkins had become ‘sort of withdrawn’ since moving to China and had recently deleted much of his social media.

A passionate vegan, he uploaded a single video to his YouTube channel last year titled: ‘I will force Chinese people to be vegan.’

‘The only people who are friends with me anyway are vegans,’ Mr Jenkins said in the video. 

‘If you’re not vegan, and you’re my friend then you’re going to be vegan soon, or we’re gonna fight … and my mum, I’m still talking to my mum. Otherwise, it’s quite limited. There’s some help from the outside from family wanting to do stuff.’

The interrogation footage was first shared by Alexander Sladkov, a Russian propagandist and military correspondent for Russia 1 and Russia 24 TV channels.

He said the Australian would now face trial and prison, while adding Russians were actively hunting for foreign fighters, potentially to secure prisoner swaps. 

He said Ukrainian units were listed as targets if a foreign language was heard in the radio interception.

When asked by his interrogator how he was being paid, Mr Jenkins said he was paid Ukrainian hryvnia into a PrivatBank account, the nation’s largest bank. 

According to the International Legion recruitment website, monthly pay matches enlisted soldier pay in regular Ukrainian units, ranging from approximately US$600 a month for rear-line troops to $3,300 a month while on a combat deployment. 

At least eight Australians have been killed since Vladimir Putin’s troops launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, including Victorian man Joel Benjamin Stremski, and Queenslanders Brock Greenwood and Matthew Jepson, who died while holding off Russian troops in the country’s east in October.

However, Mr Jenkins is the first Australian known to have been captured by Russian or Russian-aligned forces.