Arthur that's a tricky situation. Obviously being a Ukrainian is a lose/lose situation at this point. The Russians have been forced to bisect the country so that Russian Ukrainians are not subject to the whims of the Kiev regime. I suspect that ethnic Ukrainians living in the the newly Russified areas will be the real benefactors of the new status quo. That is unless they find themselves temporarily under Kiev's jurisdiction. In that case they're in danger of the kind of thing you illustrate.
Arthur that's a tricky situation. Obviously being a Ukrainian is a lose/lose situation at this point. The Russians have been forced to bisect the country so that Russian Ukrainians are not subject to the whims of the Kiev regime. I suspect that ethnic Ukrainians living in the the newly Russified areas will be the real benefactors of the new status quo. That is unless they find themselves temporarily under Kiev's jurisdiction. In that case they're in danger of the kind of thing you illustrate.
That was my thought as well. The lack of Ukrainian forces around the area to hand over the pilot left him the one choice that was moral.