Australia has vowed it will take the “strongest action possible” if Russia has harmed one of its nationals captured fighting for Ukraine, after reports emerged the prisoner of war may have been killed.

Oscar Jenkins was captured by Russian forces last month, after which a video surfaced of him being questioned while dressed in a military uniform.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government has been “seeking urgent clarification” on the situation, adding it is “gravely concerned.”

“We have called in the Russian ambassador already,” he said.

“We will await the facts to come out. But if there has been any harm caused to Oscar Jenkins, that is absolutely reprehensible. And the Australian government will take the strongest action possible.”

He declined to elaborate on what actions Canberra might take.

Speaking in a mix of English, Ukrainian and Russian, he identifies himself as “a soldier” and says he is a teacher in China and a student in Australia.

Jenkins is thought to have joined an international brigade among the Ukrainian ranks, which have recruited many foreign fighters since the war began in February 2022. The Australian government advises its citizens against traveling to Ukraine to fight, but some have nonetheless chosen to volunteer with international brigades.

At least seven Australians are believed to have died fighting in Ukraine, according to ABC, but none was known to have died while being held captive.

Prisoner of war

Originally from Melbourne, Jenkins has worked as a university lecturer in the Chinese city of Tianjin since 2017, according to a LinkedIn profile under his name.

If he was killed, he would be the first Australian to have died while being held as a prisoner of war in more than half a century. The last person to have died under such circumstances was H. W. Madden, who was captured during the Korean War in the 1950s, according to the Australian War Memorial.

Australia has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has given Kyiv close to $1 billion in assistance since 2022, while its military has provided training for Ukraine’s armed forces.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong was in Kyiv last month to announce new assistance packages, and the reopening of Canberra’s embassy in the Ukrainian capital.

During an interview with ABC on Wednesday, Wong said her department has been “working very hard” to ascertain the facts surrounding Jenkins’ safety.

“Russia is obliged to treat all prisoners of war in accordance with international humanitarian law,” Wong said. “I want to be clear all options are on the table.”

Multiple reports have emerged throughout the course of Russian troops executing prisoners of war which is a war crime under international law.

For three days, Wang Xing lived in fear. His head had been shaved. He couldn’t sleep and was in a strange place where his captors forced him to type – the first phase of training for an unwanted role.

The 31-year-old Chinese actor had flown to Bangkok for what he expected to be a movie casting call. Instead, he was picked up at the airport and driven to a scam center in Myanmar’s Myawaddy, a notorious cyber-fraud hub across the border from Thailand.

Wang is among hundreds of thousands of people who have been trafficked into scam compounds – many run by Chinese crime syndicates – that have proliferated in civil war-torn Myanmar and other parts of Southeast Asia in recent years. Often lured by the promise of well-paying jobs or other enticing opportunities, victims are held against their will and forced to carry out online fraud schemes in heavily guarded compounds, where former detainees say beatings and torture are common.

But Wang considers himself one of the lucky few. On January 7, just days after he was reported missing in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, Thai police said they located him in Myawaddy and brought him back to Thailand, without revealing the details of the operation.

The actor’s subsequent safe return to China has spurred hundreds of Chinese families to call on their government to help find and free their loved ones, who they believe are still trapped in the scam centers. Some have been missing for months or even years.

Wang’s ordeal has also put pressure on Thailand. Chinese tourists are expressing their fears on social media about traveling to the Southeast Asian nation – with some canceling their trips – frustrating Thailand’s efforts to rebuild its pandemic-hit tourism sector, which counts China as its largest and most critical market.

Thai authorities have been in damage control, attempting to reassure worried Chinese tourists that the country is safe.

Upon Wang’s return to Thailand, Thai police officials stood by the actor as he addressed Thai media in English. After asking Wang to thank the Thai government on camera, the official said, “You think Thailand is safe for you, right? Can you speak in Chinese to tell people?”

“Thailand is quite safe, so there’s no need to worry,” Wang replied. “If I have the chance in the future, I will definitely come back here again.”

‘Glimmer of hope’

Shortly after Wang’s rescue, a joint petition from the families of 174 Chinese nationals missing in Myanmar trended on Chinese social media, pleading the government to do more to help bring them home.

“We have no intention of inciting any confrontation; we simply hope to genuinely draw the government’s attention and accelerate efforts to intensify and expedite crackdowns,” the petition said.

A spreadsheet was shared online for family members to fill in details of their loved ones. It has grown from the initial 174 to include more than 1,200 victims.

Among the cases listed is Zhang Huizhen, a 24-year-old fresh graduate who went missing in October on a trip to Thailand and Cambodia. Before she vanished, she shared her location with a friend showing she was near Mae Sot. She also texted her mother, saying she had been busy lately and might not be able to reply to messages promptly, her family said.

Zhang’s family reported her missing to police in their home province of Zhejiang and reached out to the Chinese embassy in Thailand for help, but they have not received any news about her for more than 70 days.

In a video filmed aboard a police plane heading back to Bangkok, Wang said he’d been on a shoot in Thailand in 2018 and didn’t fret over this one too much. It wasn’t until he was pushed into a car by armed men that he began to realize he may have been driven across the border to Myanmar.

Wang said at least 50 people were held in the same building as him. “There were more in another building, and people came from different countries,” he said.

Alarmed by Wang’s disappearance, his girlfriend shared a desperate plea for help online, which racked up hundreds of millions of views and made headlines in state media.

After his release, many Chinese social media users questioned what happened to the dozens of other people also trapped in the compound. “You can’t just save him because he’s famous, right?” said a top comment.

Li Jie, a cousin of 21-year-old Liu Junjie who disappeared in Myawaddy on January 5, said she hoped authorities in China and Thailand would work together to save more victims. “I feel that the power of public opinion is strong, so it gives me hope,” she said.

China has worked with authorities in Myanmar to crack down on scam centers in northern Shan state, near the Chinese border. In 2023, as ethnic rebel groups gained ground against Myanmar’s ruling junta, powerful warlord families – backed by the military to rule the region and oversee these fraud operations – were apprehended and handed to Chinese police.

Chinese authorities say large-scale scam compounds in northern Myanmar have been “completely eradicated,” with more than 53,000 Chinese “suspects” – including trafficked victims – sent back to China.

But many scam centers have moved further south in Myanmar, including to Myawaddy, according to NGOs and experts who have long tracked these criminal operations.

The Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking, an NGO based in Thailand, estimates that about 6,000 victims from 21 countries are held under duress at the scam compounds in Myawaddy, including about 3,900 Chinese nationals.

The deluge of headlines has also put pressure on the Hong Kong government to bring home a dozen city residents stranded in the scam canters.

Andy Yu, a former local councilor, who has been advocating for the families since last summer, said the government hadn’t made much progress – until Wang’s rescue.

Hong Kong dispatched a task force to Thailand this week to follow up on their cases. Officials said they had received “an eager response” from the Thai government but no timeline had been set for their rescue.

Travel scares

The publicity around Wang’s case couldn’t have come at a worse time for Thai tourist operators, who had been expecting a surge of arrivals during the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s peak travel season.

But there are signs Chinese tourists are looking elsewhere.

Over the weekend, flight cancellations from China to Thailand surged 150%, Chinese state media reported, citing data from travel analytics firm ForwardKeys. And on Xiaohongshu, an Instagram-like Chinese app that is often used for travel advice, users shared tips on how to cancel flights and hotels in Thailand with minimal costs.

A tour operator in southern Guangdong province said he had seen a significant drop in bookings to Thailand following the recent headlines, with reservations for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday at just 40% of the total this time last year.

Hong Kong pop star Eason Chan canceled his upcoming concert in Bangkok, citing safety concerns for fans. Zhao Benshan, a Chinese comedy titan, also axed his February show in the Thai capital over “safety issues.”

Safety concerns about traveling to Thailand have gained traction in China before, including in early 2023, after the country reopened its borders from the pandemic. Later in the year, “No More Bets,” a Chinese thriller set in an unnamed Southeast Asian country where people are lured to work in scam factories, became a box office hit.

For nearly a decade before the pandemic, China was Thailand’s largest source of foreign tourists. But it saw a sharp drop in Chinese tourists in 2020 when China shut its borders and restricted “non-essential” overseas travel.

Last March, in an effort to boost tourism, the two countries waived visa requirements for each other’s citizens. China reclaimed its position as the top source of visitors in Thailand last year, though the number of Chinese arrivals only recovered to about 60% of pre-pandemic levels.

The latest safety fears sparked by Wang’s abduction could pose a challenge to Thailand’s efforts to further boost that number.

Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, acknowledged that these concerns would undoubtedly affect the Chinese tourism market, particularly among tour groups. However, he said the extent of the impact remains uncertain.

The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners said, after local authorities cut off vital supplies in a dramatic bid to crack down on the country’s illegal mining trade.

As of Tuesday evening, at least 51 bodies and 66 survivors had been pulled out of the Stilfontein mine, according to South African police, with many more feared trapped inside.

While estimates varied on how many men were in the mine, Meshack Mbangula, head of the Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), had earlier estimated that 500 people were trapped underground.

The video, filmed by one of the miners last week, according to Mbangula, also shows shirtless, emaciated-looking men with protruding bones and ribs.

A man speaking in Zulu, pleads to be rescued in one scene. Another man says: “How many days must we live in a situation like this.”

“Please take us out. Please assist us to come out or if not, please give us food because [there are] people who are dead. We’ve got 109 people dead and we need plastic to wrap them because the smell is too much, we can’t stand the smell,” the miners said in the letter.

Community-led groups like MACUA say they have led the effort to help the trapped miners for months, he said, as police cut off food and vital supplies to the men in November in an attempt to force them out and close the mine.

The police’s move – a self-described crackdown on the illegal mining industry – has drawn criticism from community groups and South Africa’s Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), who in November called it “vindictive,” and one that may “end in a tragedy.”

Police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe told reporters in November that food and water supplies to those underground had been halted. “We are stopping and preventing food and water to go down there as a way of forcing these illegal miners to resurface because what they are doing is criminality,” she said.

Miners would face arrest upon resurfacing, according to police.

In November, a South African court ordered police to halt its standoff, provide food to the trapped miners and allow rescue teams to access the mine. The nation’s Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) also said it was investigating the police service for halting vital supplies to the miners.

On Sunday, facing intensifying public pressure and reports that many of the miners had already died, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy said it had begun plans to conduct a rescue operation at the abandoned shaft. The mineral resources department said “the decision to deploy rescue services was made independently” and not mandated by a court.

South Africa harbors up to 100,000 artisanal miners, known locally as “zama zamas” with most of the minerals derived from artisanal mining “sold to the black market, and international illicit mineral traders,” according to SAFTU.

The nation also loses more than $1 billion to illegal mining annually, with the black market trade in gold linked to violent turf wars, according to a parliamentary brief.

Russia’s military on Tuesday said it would retaliate against Ukraine after Kyiv attacked Russian regions by firing six US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles, six UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles and launching one of the biggest drone attacks to date.

After Ukraine first launched ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles into Russia last year, Moscow responded on Nov. 21 by launching a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik”, or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down all of the Western missiles fired by Ukraine at the Bryansk region, as well as 146 drones outside the war zone. It said two more Storm Shadows had been shot down over the Black Sea.

“The actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western curators, will not go unanswered,” the defence ministry said.

The Ukrainian General Staff said it had struck as deep as 1,100 km (680 miles) inside Russia, targeting oil storage, refinery, chemical and ammunition plants in the Bryansk, Saratov, Tula and Tatarstan regions.

Kyiv did not say exactly how it struck the targets, but said that drone and missile forces were among the units involved in the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in November that the Ukraine war was escalating towards a global conflict after the United States and Britain allowed Ukraine for the first time to launch their missiles deep inside Russia.

President-elect Donald Trump has pushed for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war quickly, leaving Washington’s long-term support for Ukraine in question.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Drone attack

The drone attack on Russia was one of the biggest to date.

Roman Busargin, governor of the Saratov region about 720 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, said the cities of Saratov and Engels, on opposite banks of the Volga River, had been subjected to a mass drone attack and there was damage to two industrial sites. Schools had shifted to remote learning, he said.

Ukraine attacked the same region last week and claimed to have struck an oil depot serving an airbase for Russian nuclear bomber planes, causing a huge fire that took five days to put out.

The Ukrainian General Staff said it had hit the Kristall Plant oil storage facility in Engels, part of an operation run by Ukrainian drone units and military intelligence.

The General Staff also said it had struck the Bryansk Chemical Plant, which it said produced ammunition for artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, aviation, engineering ammunition and components for cruise missiles.

The drone attack struck a munitions storage facility holding guided bombs and missiles at the Engels airbase in Russia’s Saratov region as well as other targets, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine said on Tuesday.

The General Staff said attacks on the Saratov Oil Refinery and the Kazanorgsintez plant triggered fires.