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British volunteer says he was ‘manipulated’ into joining the frontline in Ukraine
Published: 17 May 2022 | 07:28 GMTThe Briton told RT that he came to help civilians, but was pushed into combat by Ukrainian officers
Andrew from Plymouth says he traveled to Ukraine to treat wounded civilians, but within weeks, he found himself shelled, shot, and captured. Recovering in a hospital, he told RT that he and his fellow volunteers were “manipulated” into the very duty they swore to avoid.
Andrew, a 35-year-old who worked as a scaffolder back home in Britain, was attached to a unit of Ukraine’s International Legion near Nikolayev when he came under a devastating Russian artillery barrage. Russian troops fired on his position, Andrew was hit in the arm with a bullet, and he surrendered.
“I wasn’t there to fight so I surrendered,” he told RT. As for his teammates who fought, “They were killed,” he explained.
Andrew said that he never intended to participate in, or even get close to, combat. Watching media reports about the conflict in Ukraine in March, he said he got the impression that “Ukraine was asking people for help,” and contacted the Ukrainian Embassy.
Leaving his children behind, he flew from the UK to Poland, and made his way to the Ukrainian border. After a brief stint “helping refugees” there, he said he was approached by a man named ‘Jacob’ from the International Legion, who told him that his basic medical experience – gained with the British military – could be put to use further inside Ukraine.
“I feel sad,” he told RT. “I do feel that I’ve been lied to, massively. Not just by the Foreign Legion, but I feel like I was lied to back in the UK through the Western media.” Andrew said that news reports of “people all coming over helping, going to Ukraine, helping Ukraine,” made the trip seem like an easy prospect.
Once inside Ukraine, Andrew recalls traveling to a building in Lviv, where he and a cohort of foreigners were kept indoors for several days, allegedly for their own safety. Although he served in the British Army, Andrew said that he had no combat experience, and that volunteers like him were kept separate from veterans who came to Ukraine to fight.
From there, the group was bussed to Yavoriv – where a training center for foreign recruits had been destroyed by a Russian missile – and then to Kiev, where a Ukrainian handler told them that the situation would be similar to that in Lviv: “‘You will be locked down, you can’t leave the building, you have to stay in, you will be fed, water will be provided to you, wait until further instruction.’”
Andrew’s first interaction with Ukrainian civilians came at the beginning of April in the town of Bucha, where he said that he cooked and distributed food. Although he arrived in Bucha after Russian troops had left, he said that he saw no signs of the war crimes that the Ukrainian government later attributed to the Russians there.
“I didn’t see any corpses myself, didn’t see anything, it looked untouched,” he recalled, adding that he remained on the outskirts of the town. “It all seemed normal. There weren't any signs of any fighting.”
After only a day in Bucha, another bus ride took Andrew and his companions to Nikolaev, which he said was “closer to the front than I was aware of.” Even after he was moved up to a combat unit of six other foreigners outside the city, Andrew said that things seemed quiet. However, the day after he was sent to the front, the position was attacked.
“I got shot in my arm, broke my bones,” he told RT. As Russian troops advanced, Andrew lay on the ground with his good hand above his head, until a Russian soldier dragged him into a foxhole and administered first aid. “I’m very lucky to survive,” he recalled. “The Russian soldier that gave me first aid saved my life. The bullet cut my artery and I was bleeding out.”
Andrew’s captor offered him a cigarette before he was moved back through Russian lines for surgery and questioning. Currently awaiting two further rounds of surgery in a hospital under the authority of the Donbass People’s Republic (DPR), he told RT that there were many volunteers like him who ended up “in a situation that you don’t want to be in.”
“Everyone seemed to be normal people that wanted to help,” he said of his fellow volunteers, a group that included British, Canadian, American, German, and Danish members. However, he said that many felt “the same way as me,” in that they felt like they were “manipulated” into helping soldiers rather than civilians.
Since his capture, Andrew told RT that he was being treated “very well” in the hospital. “Everyone’s being very friendly. I’m receiving medical aid every day, being fed three times a day, I get water, tea, coffee, everything I need,” he explained. He said that DPR authorities are currently seeking to return him to the UK, but need the cooperation of the British Home Office and Ukrainian embassy in London to arrange the transfer.
Neither London nor Kiev are cooperating with the DPR’s requests, he told RT.
Ukraine orders Azovstal fighters to surrender
Published: 16 May 2022 | 23:01 GMTThe units have “completed the assigned combat mission,” Kiev claims
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed on its social media networks on Tuesday evening that its servicemen holed up at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have been ordered to surrender.
“The garrison ‘Mariupol’ has completed the assigned combat mission. The highest military command issued an order to the commanders of the units located at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” the Ukrainian military statement explained. According to Kiev, while holding positions at Azovstal, its soldiers prevented Russian troops from operating in other theaters.
The two countries have been embroiled in a full-blown conflict since February, when Moscow attacked the neighboring state, following an eight-year standoff over the fate of the Donbass.
Kiev insisted that the Azov neo-Nazis and members of its regular forces had “prevented the implementation of the [alleged Russian] plan for the quick capture of [nearby] Zaporozhye, and did not allow access to the administrative border of the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions.”
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that work on their return will require “delicacy and time.”
“Thanks to the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, intelligence, as well as the negotiating group, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN, we have hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys. I want to emphasize that Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle. I think that every adequate person will understand these words. To bring our military back home, the work continues, and this work requires delicacy and time,” he stated.
A large portion of them are members of the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment. The military uniforms of the group feature Nazi insignia and its members have been photographed with tattoos of symbols such as the swastika. Its first commander, Andrey Biletsky, has said he believes it’s Ukraine’s mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior humans].”
The first stage of surrender was completed on Monday – 264 soldiers left Azovstal. There are now 53 wounded servicemen in a hospital in Novoazovsk and 211 soldiers in Yelenovka, both of which are part of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
Russian sources have estimated that about 2,200 people have been trapped in the basements of the huge Azovstal complex. The site is 11 square kilometers long and its subterranean sections are designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
According to the deputy minister of defense of Ukraine, Anna Malyar, and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, those who surrender will be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war taken captive by Kiev. However, the terms of the exchange have not yet been decided.
Moscow has not yet made any public statements about an exchange. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian side has tried to avoid the use of the expression ‘surrender’.
After the last Ukrainian soldier leaves Azovstal, the battle for Mariupol will be effectively over and Russia will have gained total control of the strategically vital city.
were there even 100 people there?
