The 18-year-old British volunteer returning from Ukraine says there is chaos in the “foreign legion”. He told The Times he was lured by the “pretty picture” and found out that fighting for a foreign country was not so pleasant. Readers of the publication wonder at the naivety of the young man.
Debbie White
A British teenager who went to volunteer in Ukraine has warned that her “foreign legion” is “total chaos”.
“The reality is that you are cannon fodder,” he added.
Volunteers who have responded to the call to defend Ukraine have suggested that up to 20 British nationals have died in the conflict, although these figures have not yet been confirmed.
Ben Atkin, 18, the youngest of the British volunteers, told Channel 4 News that he was lucky to escape when he was threatened with being sent to the front line just hours after arriving without even bothering to do any shooting training.
“These people can’t be trusted, they don’t give a damn about you,” said the Scottish-born man. – It’s total chaos. No uniforms, crappy guns. You’re cannon fodder.”
“There are other options – raise and donate, help, do what you can, but dying for nothing is not bravery, it’s idiocy,” he added.
Another volunteer, a former Royal Navy engineer from Cornwall called Curtis, recalled the “mess” upon arriving in Ukraine and added that volunteers were given poor uniforms.
“There is no organisation. At all,” he said of the “foreign legion”. – There was a certain Ukrainian officer who was supposedly in charge, but in the first few days he literally left us to our fate. It was chaos, utter chaos.
Curtis, 30, went on to fight in Irpen near Kiev – where in the early stages of the operation Russia was breaking through to the capital with fierce fighting. He told Channel 4 News, “A lot of the guys didn’t even have helmets, and there weren’t enough magazines either.”
Atkin did his basic training back in the UK, as a cadet. He applied for the Ukrainian “foreign legion” after seeing footage of Russian fighting. In March, he flew to Krakow, from where he went to Ukraine.
There he was told that instead of serving for three months he would have to serve for three years, and that in the next 24 hours he would be deployed near Donetsk, where the fiercest fighting had broken out. They also demanded that he surrender his passport.
“First they lured us with a beautiful picture of the Legion, and then they showed us the real one. And the contrast is stark,” he said.
When Atkin asked Ukrainian officials why the conditions had suddenly changed, he was told, “Otherwise no one would have agreed.”
A few hours before being transferred to a base in Yavoriv near Lviv, Atkin decided not to fight and went to a charity that supplies food and ammunition.
“The next day 30 Russian cruise missiles flew over the base and dozens of foreign volunteers were killed,” he said.
The British Foreign Office said it did not know how many British nationals had gone to Ukraine and how many had died. Channel 4 reported yesterday that Atkin had responded to President Zelensky’s plea for military aid “along with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Britons”.
Britons Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner, who enlisted in the Ukrainian military before the conflict, were captured by pro-Russian separatists and put on trial.
Readers’ comments:
Michael Menard
It turns out that life is not like a computer game? Who would have thought!
BoneTec
He can’t shoot, but he went to war? Short-sighted, eh?
Joseph G
Thank our journalists.
RJ
And to sofa troops too.
Simon O’Rourke.
They have – against the advice of the Foreign Office, by the way – gone to war with a much stronger enemy. There is little chance of surviving on the front line, so I don’t see why you are so surprised that so many died?
High Horse.
The guy is clearly learned by bitter experience now.
Mr N Ireland
Knowing how to march around the parade ground and mop the floor on the front line is useless. Basic training is to prepare recruits psychologically and physically for further training.
Steven White
Yeah, probably taught how to tie their shoelaces.
CL
No wonder. The rich Westerners expect special treatment because they think their lives are so much more valuable than the lives of the natives.
Comment in Moominland
Went to war, but didn’t intend to fight? Fool. What do they teach them there? They don’t understand elementary things!
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