Shaun Pinner
@Live.Fight.Survive
Author, Public Speaker & recipient of “The Order of Courage” for selfless acts in the defense & sovereignty of Ukraine
A proud husband, dad and born near Watford in England, I served proudly for nine years with the British Army’s Royal Anglian Regiment before settling & marrying in Mariupol, Ukraine in 2018.
Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) trained latterly prior to operations for the UN in Bosnia during the early 90’s, I subsequently joined the Ukrainian military in 2018 as the country rebuilt its armed forces following the annexation of Crimea.
While on my 4th routine deployment in Ukraine, 2nd as a section commander, I was situated in a forward listening post 800m forward of the 1st line when Russia invaded in February 2022. I commenced with my Platoon on a fighting withdraw back to Mariupol over several days where we fought for 6 more weeks before I was finally captured by Russian forces escaping the city. Recaptured in my book “Live. Fight. Survive”
Russia Wants Ukraine to Succeed?
This weekend, Donald Trump made a claim so detached from reality it caused more than a few people to spit out their tea.
He said: “Russia wants Ukraine to succeed.”
That remark was not made in a vacuum. It was delivered while Russia was actively launching missiles, drones, and artillery strikes across Ukraine — hitting civilians, critical infrastructure, and cities far from the front line.
This was not a gaffe.
This was not poor phrasing.
This was a reframing of the war.
That reframing aligns almost perfectly with long-running Kremlin narratives — narratives designed to blur responsibility, exhaust Western resolve, and normalise aggression.
The More Dangerous Question
The real issue isn’t outrage, it’s credibility.
If a former US president can so casually invert aggressor and victim, what does that signal about the reliability of US security guarantees, not just for Ukraine, but globally?
What message does it send to:
- Venezuela, watching how far international consequences truly go
- Taiwan, measuring whether deterrence is firm or conditional
- Allies, who rely on NATO commitments being more than just rhetoric
Language matters.
And adversaries are always listening.
In This Episode
Cormac Smith, former British diplomat to Ukraine, and I discuss:
- Why this statement is strategically dangerous, not merely controversial
- Where the US now sits in the global perception battle
- Why Russia needs Western figures to say exactly this
- How propaganda works without uniforms, state TV, or slogans
- What this means for Ukraine, NATO credibility, and global security guarantees
The Bigger Picture
Wars are not only fought with tanks and drones.
They are fought with words, legitimacy, and perception.
And when senior Western figures repeat narratives that absolve the aggressor, the cost is not theoretical.
People die because of it.
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Jan 2, 2026
That was a really excellent discussion.
If anyone is qualified to comment on this terrible war, it’s Shaun, who lived through the indescribable horror of putinaZi torture, humiliation and deprivation of all human comforts at the hands of savages that are the inspiration for Hamas and isis.
He served his country, married a Ukrainian girl and then served his new country.
He lived in Mariupol, which was a happy, civilized and cultured city but with the misfortune of being close to occupied Crimea and the border of the devil country.
Because the putinaZis were smashed by the Azov in Mariupol in 2014, putler set out to destroy it, which he duly did in 2022.
With hindsight, we can say that the Ukrainians should have known about this vulnerability and prepared better for the onslaught. Ditto Kherson.
No one knows how many civilians were murdered in Mariupol. It was a replica of the sacking of Grozny. By that comparison alone, one can extrapolate up to 200,000 murders.
The truth can’t come out until Mariupol reverts to its legal owners.
Cormac referenced the speech of the new head of MI6 : Blaise Metreweli. Here are a few quotes:
“We all continue to face the menace of an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia, seeking to subjugate Ukraine and harass NATO … (Putin) is dragging out negotiations and shifting the cost of war onto his own population…”
“We are now operating in a space between peace and war…..”
“The export of chaos is a feature, not a bug, in this Russian approach to international engagement, and we should be ready for this to continue until Putin is forced to change his calculus….”
Cormac also referenced prof Tim Snyder’s many articles proving ruZZian genocide. Here is just one :
https://snyder.substack.com/p/russias-genocide-handbook
“Russia wants Ukraine to succeed.”
Whenever this terrorist entity says anything that looks positive, it’s always a good thing to be skeptical and to look closer. It always turns out never being positive. The russians are pathological liars and notorious backstabbers.