{"id":71,"date":"2022-04-29T13:09:04","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T13:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2022-04-29T13:10:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T13:10:29","slug":"speaking-to-volunteers-outside-the-ukrainian-embassy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"Speaking to Volunteers Outside the Ukrainian Embassy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The situation in Ukraine is moving extremely fast so parts of this article may be out of date at the time of reading.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really feel like I\u2019m doing anything meaningful right now.\u201d The reason given by one of the many men that came to the Ukrainian embassy to volunteer. Short, skinny and shaking, the 20 year old \u2013 who didn\u2019t want to be named \u2013 lacked military experience and hadn\u2019t told his family what he planned to do. He continued: \u201cIt\u2019s a terrible situation and I just want to help.\u201d A sentiment repeated by all of the volunteers that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 24 February 2022 Russia invades Ukraine, in the largest military action in Europe since 1945. Three days later President Zelenskiy announces the formation of The International Legion For The Territorial Defence of Ukraine, and encourages \u201cAnyone who wants to join the defence of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals.\u201d There has been huge volume volunteers, ranging from: Greying veterans dusting off their boots, private military contractors leaving well paid jobs, and a flood of civilians. From the start many were concerned that volunteers without any relevant experience, rather than helping the situation, could be a drain on resources and potentially lethal liabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Zelenskiy\u2019s statement announcing the International Legion, people wanting to join were instructed to contact the Ukrainian embassy in their country. This was then repeated in a tweet by the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba and a \u2013 now deleted \u2013 Holywood style social media advert. Those that came to the Ukrainian embassy in London were met at the gate by a man in military fatigues who asked them to take a picture of a piece of paper printed with further instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have seen footage of civilians \u2026 and yeah I think that\u2019s really problematic.\u201d The initial reaction of retired British Army Major Malcolm Hanson. He described three broad categories of volunteers, in descending order of usefulness: private military contractors coming as a preformed unit, individual retired soldiers, and civilians \u2013 \u201cthe loose coalition at the bottom, the people just turning up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the volunteers in London on 2 March the vast majority were in the third category: No military experience but, undoubtably, a lot of conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Peter, 47, a former police officer from South Africa, gave a passionate speech in which he urged others to join him: \u201cI hope you all get behind me, this country has been given tens of thousands of weapons. NATO can\u2019t get involved, but we can.\u201d He, like many others, talks about the civilians being killed: \u201cThese people are slaughtering families, women and children. I\u2019m a parent, my daughter she\u2019s 13, she doesn\u2019t even know yet that I\u2019m going. But I\u2019m going to fight for her, her freedom.\u201d After his speech Peter mentions that he doesn\u2019t have a passport, but was hoping that border guards would be understanding and let him travel without one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cNot being offensive to civilians but what a lot of them don\u2019t realise is you are a human being on the ground, you are using things up, you are using up food, water, you\u2019re using up loo paper. You\u2019ve got to be able to justify your existence in that place. You become a staff problem because you now have to be maintained.\u201d Said Maj. Hanson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Callum Lawrence a 22 year old builder from Bow in East London, who had decided that morning that he wanted to go. When asked about any Military experience, he replied: \u201cI\u2019ve done some boxing and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanson continues: \u201cthe problem with deployments is nothing needs to happen for people to start getting killed and injured … There\u2019s lot\u2019s of tired people, there\u2019s lots of ammunition, there\u2019s a lot of heavy machinery flying around, people get run over by things. People get accidentally shot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man in his early twenties from Sunderland, Jack \u2013 who didn\u2019t want to use his full name \u2013 had arrived with a backpack full of clothes and was under the impression that he would be taken straight off to Ukraine. After finding out that the only thing on offer was a laminated piece of paper with an email address, he said: \u201cI\u2019ve just come six hours on a train for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vinnie, 26, from Brighton had \u2013 a few years ago \u2013 attempted to join the British army but failed to pass training selection. He currently works in nightclubs but felt that \u201cthere\u2019s a lot more important things to be done in the world at the moment.\u201d He expressed a desire to not just be \u201csat terrified\u201d and instead had an impulse to act. This feeling of wanting to get up and not just passively observe was voiced by many that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot that I would, but if I was out there and somebody said \u2018okay Malcolm you\u2019ve been in the military before, you\u2019ve got three civilians with you\u2019, I\u2019d be thinking \u2014 and they\u2019ve all got loaded rifles \u2014 \u2018you\u2019re not standing behind me.\u2019 Because quite frankly you\u2019re an unknown quantity and people die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanson talked about how the usefulness of people who had been in military was down to more than just their skills and training, but that they would form more coherently into units with trust: \u201cI can imagine if you got a group of squadies together \u2026 within half an hour they\u2019re starting to bond, you\u2019ve got some commonality there … Because if one of them said \u2018mate there\u2019s a bit here where you might get shot at but I need you to stand there\u2019 you need some common bond.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a couple of ex British military among the volunteers that day: Jack Knight, who served in the Royal engineers, and Will \u2013 who only gave first his name \u2013 who a few days ago finished a five year contract in the army reserves. Will had already spent a lot of his own money on kit and had been sorting out legal arrangements \u2013 life insurance and writing up his will. He was also very open about how the fighting in Ukraine would be extremely dangerous, specifically because of Russia\u2019s air superiority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foreign fighters that Hanson says will be most effective are private military contractors arriving together in sections (small self contained fighting units) that will instantly be able to work on their own: \u201cI can imagine them formally going to the Ukrainian government and saying \u2018Hey, [we\u2019ll work for] reduced rates, we\u2019re a squad of guys, we\u2019ll go and do some work for you.\u2019\u201d They would already have strong bonds and trust, as well as their ability to work semi-autonomously mitigating language barrier issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such group was interviewed by the Guardian in Ukraine at Lviv station, waiting to board a train to Kyiv. From the group Ben Grant \u2013 son of Tory MP Helen Grant \u2013 spoke on camera, and iterated many of Hanson\u2019s points. Grant, former Royal Marine, has been working as a private military contractor (PMC) in Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another member of the group of seven, going only by the name Jax, said: \u201cI left \u00a34,500 a month to come here.\u201d Implying that he hasn\u2019t come to Ukraine for the money, but Hanson speculates that a PMC might not only be there for either a pay check or on humanitarian grounds: \u201cyou might still want to go to make your mark … to cut your teeth, to show who you are, for any number of reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On 13 March Yavoriv military base, housing an estimated 1,000 foreign fighters, was hit by 30 Russian missiles, Ukrainian officials have said that 40 soldiers were killed and 135 injured. However a German volunteer who was at the base \u2013 quoted in Austrian newspaper Heute \u2013 said that the Ukrainian figures only included their own citizens and that over 100 foreigners also died. The Mirror reported that a group of at least three British ex special forces were feared dead in the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The base, only 15 miles from the Polish border, was a key training facility for foreign volunteers \u2013 Ukrainian official Roman Shepely was quoted in Reuters: “They all end [up] in Yavoriv, and from there they are distributed to the points of service.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been no official statement on how many foreign fighters are currently in Ukraine, but on 7 March the Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, announced that 20,000 people from 52 countries had contacted embassies to volunteer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day that President Zelenskiy announced the formation of the International Legion, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss \u2013 in an interview on the BBC \u2013 said that she was in support of people deciding to join. On 9 March Truss walks back on her statement after she had been contradicted by both PM Johnson and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some British citizens that have gone to Ukraine have reported back that the fighting has been extremely intense, and many volunteers have already returned home. For anyone considering joining the International Legion Major Hanson has a closing message: \u201cIf there\u2019s a civilian foreign fighter who doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s coming they\u2019ve got a real shock, because if it does descend into chaos, if you\u2019ve got no staff officer making sure you\u2019ve got food and water, you\u2019re now on your own and in a bombed out city there are no more rules. All the rules are off, and that\u2019s an utterly different, you really have to know why you\u2019re there if that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The situation in Ukraine is moving extremely fast so parts of this article may be out of date at the time of reading. \u201cI don\u2019t really feel like I\u2019m doing anything meaningful right now.\u201d The reason given by one of the many men that came to the Ukrainian embassy to volunteer. Short, skinny and shaking,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edcarron.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}