Legionaries – International Fighters Share Their First Hand Ukraine War Experience (Part I)

Legionaries – International Fighters Share Their First Hand Ukraine War Experience (Part I)

wars exist as long as mankind does some people fight for territories wealth and their sick convictions others defend their freedom and right to exist during these wars there were people of Goodwill who chose the right side of history and fought on the side of good there are dozens of such examples worldwide volunteers from Poland France and Prussia fought against British army during the falling American Revolution Gilbert Lafayette tados kusko and Friedrich Von stoin engraved their names in American panon of Glory George Byron well-known British poet fought for independence of Greece in the ranks of its Army British volunteers as a part of Simon De bolivar’s Army fought in South America for Independence of the local colonies from the Spanish Crown volunteers from dozens of countries created volunteer units and fought against the British in the bore War Lafayette Escadrille was formed from American Pilots volunteers included in the French army during the first world war they continued this tradition during the second world war the pilots fought against Germans and Japanese in volunteer escrs of British and Chinese armies thousands of volunteers from Estonia and Sweden fought against the Soviet Army which invaded Finland hundreds of volunteers from different countries fought in the Croatian army during the C catian war of independence Ukrainian volunteers fought against Russia and its proxies in transnistria Georgia and Cheta and now thousands of volunteers from all over the world fight for independence and freedom of [Music] Ukraine double Don I guess I’m from the northeastern part of the United States had a pretty good upbringing and uh roughly uh almost 15 years over there in the US um about five doing an infantry type job and then about 10 more on the medical side after that I was able to go over to the French Special Operations and that was my first experience in something called a legion and then so now working in Ukraine is my third Army in the United States uh I was you know fortunate enough to participate in two Wars you know both technically under the global war on terrorism but I got to go and fight in two other countries and so uh now Ukraine is my third war third war and third Army and I feel blessed to be here and help out I’m from bouth it’s like a kind of coastal town south of the UK maybe a couple hundred thousand people but a nice beat nice Countryside [ __ ] nice Countryside but not much to talk about other than that like no one’s heard of the place um there for school on that went to University in London lived and worked in London for a couple years moved to another town for a year or two went back to London and then when this started I’ve been working in bars for a bit kind of ho between jobs then I’ve been working in the bar for a bit this started I was like well I’m I’m working in a [ __ ] bar and this is happening and I think I could go there so I can’t keep working in a [ __ ] bar like my is um um yeah the job here is uh I’m 29 years old I’m from Nova Scotia Canada I live in New Zealand and have off and on since 2008 um um for fore h [Music] [Music] truck driver I do this is my job before the war uh I’m oxide from New Zealand from Christ Church New Zealand uh growing up was just you know normal civilian life in New Zealand went to school got a trade did some work got bored looked for a bit of Adventure found myself in Ukraine uh did some things in New Zealand that yeah so my skill set’s better used in Ukraine than it is in New Zealand [Music] in the beginning uh I was back home in Finland enjoying my EA beer and uh you know these little sweets that you can buy from shop and uh eating them and watching uh news from Ukraine and there was this some 18-year-old uh kids who had given a and just half military stuff half like you know just regular clo civilian and being like okay just go and defend your country and I kind of stopped like what I’m doing just looked at it and thought to myself like at least I can give more uh like as a soldier than these guys so why am I so privileged to stay and drink my beer and enjoy my sweets and like live nice while they are defending their home and I guess the beer didn’t taste so good anymore and after that and then I just went to the Russian Embassy and shouted a couple a and slav ukraini and the next morning I came to Ukrainian Embassy and said that I’m coming to fight your War I met a lot of ukrainians in Munich Germany as tattoo artists they are funny people like them some of them was living on our couch um yeah it was actually cool like pretty normal people actually and yeah so the best friend from my mom is a Ukrainian citizen her name is um um Victoria she’s working in englad and I don’t know I can say that and yeah like I know some ukrainians and my mom is like pretty they’re really good friends they meet each other in the the medical school because my mom is a medic in the hospital and this Ukrainian lady also I know their children so yeah like I will be honest I was not I’m not here because I know a lot of Ukraine I’m here because of the idea of Liberty freedom and also the reasons like it doesn’t can be really good for whole Europe that Russia takes over a huge country so much human resources and also other resources like Ukraine so my motivation to come here was uh that I heard that there’s not enough of educated uh combat Medics and I got my education from The Finnish Defense Forces they uh educated me to become a combat medic and I heard that there’s there’s not enough of combat Medics so it makes no sense for a educated person to wake up from his own bed safely and home while there’s people that might actually need your help and I also heard that there’s other fous persons here so I wanted to come and help them the best I could and then uh you just can’t attack independent nations like that and uh you can’t bully the smaller one it’s wrong I think following the the media uh coverage of uh what was happening here in Ukraine an unprovoked attack against uh a peaceful Nation the attacks against civilian population um combined with the fact that I’ve always wanted to go uh serve in the armed forces it was it was a very easy decision to to come here uh well I joined the army to like try and help like defend people and fight for them but I never got a chance to um go into combat in the Canadian Army which is why everyone that I did you know became a soldier with that’s why we joined to be deployed see action of course as well and that didn’t happen um after I got out of the army I went back to New Zealand and um I found out about the legion so I thought maybe I can you know I can try and help them so I I went through figuring out how to to come here and yeah just to help you know defend innocent people I see being killed I don’t really personally care about the Ukrainian government honestly it’s just the people motivation um I learned I I’ll be honest I thought that Ukraine was much more uh homophobic and not accepting and kind of traditional and regressive than it actually is and then I learned that you actually nobody really gives a [ __ ] for the most part like people might be homophobic but you know it’s no worse than anywhere in the west and I was like okay it’s not going to be as bad as I thought it was and the hak offensive was happening and you know the hon situation and I was like okay they can fight back this this isn’t going to just be 2014 but the borders moved West right and obviously south from prier like they the ukrainians are taking grind back they want to win this fight they are in this fight for the long term they’re going to do whatever it takes they’re going to get every back every inch of their territory back no matter how long it takes and at that point I was like right I can’t sit around here being comfortable at home in the UK anymore like I’m going to go help because if not now then when do you know what I mean like if like I’m not an 18-year-old and there are people that are a lot older than me here but I was like okay this is the point where I’m going to go and help and so I did here I am almost a year later well when I saw what was happening on the news and stuff uh it felt like the right thing to do I couldn’t just sit by and let things like this happen it didn’t feel right um plus I knew that I could have an impact here the things that I’m good at in New Zealand weren’t appreciated but here in this situation uh it’s a valid skill set to have the point there was like I definitely go cuz like young and healthy like I can shoot like I’d shot a fait before which I like there’s much more to the job than that but it’s a I would say a reasonable framework basis for it like uh like reaction to Fire and basic like Squad level movement and [ __ ] like we did in school you know so like there was some degree of understanding I thinking well if like 50-year-old guys would like kids and are having to do it and our countes are not doing anything then like what’s keeping me here [ __ ] nothing [Music] so for me that was a bit unconventional um because I got into the legion last year in October through a friend of mine and back then the registration process um it was a lot less structured than it is now so it was really just if you were recommended to uh to the legion by someone who knew you there would have been no problem that that you could just tell people yeah I’ll I’ll forward it to my platoon command then you come to our HQ you sign your contract and and that’s it so that’s how I got in there so I got in there because a friend of mine told the legion that I was a medic and I had worked with him in bahm before my platoon Commander was not quite happy when I told him that that might have been a bit of an overstatement um when I first got here as a civilian I could have definitely used the training definitely um I got very lucky not to get killed on my first mission about which was about seven days after I signed my contract and um I was also very very lucky that I had a lot of very qualified people around me who helped me get to the point where I could actually be a decent Soldier and do my job well um right now with the reworked training process I think that it’s a lot better because by now everybody every single person who comes to the Legion now will have to go through a minimum of one month of training before they’re even assigned to any combat platoon or a combat battalion so for the first month all they will do is training training training um which I think is a very good thing because we had a lot of situations um where people like me came here but then decided that there was no need for them to actually improve on their condition and on on their behavior and it has led to a bunch of very good people dying and um personally I’m I’m a bit tired of dragging out the corpses of my of my friends because some idiotes who doesn’t know how to do his job decided that he wants to play Soldier I didn’t know how to join the legion um there wasn’t any information or website like the legion has now um I was in New Zealand I thought maybe I’ll call a Ukrainian Embassy in New Zealand but New Zealand doesn’t have one so I called the Australian Ukrainian Embassy to ask how how could I if I have enough EXP experience um to even join I think they sent me some email or whatever some form I filled out and then the only thing they told me is here’s this point on the Polish Ukrainian border you need to get there yourself and find this tent um so that’s what I did and it’s expensive to fly from New Zealand to Poland and then down to the border and it’s a lot of money and uh come in here and do it twice I’m very in debt it was um pretty frustrating honestly because we were very we were kept in the dark um so we didn’t know how long we were going to be waiting or what it was we were in for um being in that Barracks waiting around for a month and a half was probably the worst part of Ukraine honestly um because it was like just the bordedom and the frustration of like we’re here we’re paying for everything bleeding money because at that point we’re not considered part of the military we don’t have contracts so they’re not allowed to pay us so we still have to pay for a lot of things ourselves like equipment um food and all sorts of stuff like that so we were bleeding money running out of money and then finally we get paid we get to our units and everything got better from there but um yeah they told us that when we finally get to the field we’re going to be wishing we were back in training but I think I’m the opposite i’ yeah I’d rather be out there working opposed to be sitting around doing nothing uh you know within reason obviously I wouldn’t want to be out every day continuously but if we could go out at least I don’t know once every two weeks for a few days or a week at a time that would be good one week on one week off at least once a month I don’t know feel like we’re contributing more I decid to move uh from Ukraine in this year in February I take a bus you know flecks bus maybe I take a fleak boo from my Milan and uh later 12 hours I join in leopi we say leopi in Italiana and nothing U without a contact no contact no no nobody I I see only video you have a a foreign Fighters fighting with Ukraine for Ukraine and decide to to Move It I join in uh I am staying in for four days and uh I don’t know I try to found you know I go in a military office in the city and ask about the for join in the Army he said we know here is for only Ukrainian people you are from Italy you are foreign fighter in I meet this guy yaroslav I remember the name zav for a friend and he he gave me the direction for for go to the office and later join in the international Legion before to the international Legion I’m stay five month in Ukrainian battal names carasa and later 5 month we deployment uh I can say where now yeah in dbas dones o blast we deployment here uh with a is a unit with all foreign fighter uh guys from more guys from Latin America sou America Colombia and before to stay with this guy I don’t speak Spanish and in this five month and start to speak Spanish too is a beautiful because you you know a different culture and we are all unit for help Ukraine you know and later this I decide to move for the legion uh I know because I speak English too and I move for international Legion and here now is a two month half two month half uh to stay here is a good place I like so much I do my job but I think good and nothing I’m here man so I think it was March 18th I came into Ukraine um we’ waited no so I left the UK on maybe March the 10th I’d like come across a couple of Americans online on some Forum or some [ __ ] who said they were also going but I got into Poland earlier so I was waiting for them for maybe the bulk of a week met them in Warsaw realized they were both [ __ ] if you pick the stereotypical American that likes the idea of shooting a war like this isn’t going to [ __ ] work um one of them met a girl in Warsaw not not even not not even like a girl that he was [ __ ] in which case I can kind of understand it but just like met a girl I like okay I’m not going and then the legion base got bombed it’s like okay I’m definitely not going the other one was stupider and still wanted to go but was I mean stupid like you know some you talk to someone you’re like they are mentally deficient like um so he got to pil pill yeah um and we were at the refugee camp for a couple of days like trying to find other guys going through cuz at that point is it was it was still like okay we’re in Poland and that’s you Ukraine like and who knows what’s over there and it’s all war and [ __ ] um so find a few guys that are wanting to cross through and then there was a group of maybe four or five of us um that went to the legion they were having like not recruiting but there was like a filing process um and like any guys who had experienced are like no but met a couple of guys there who had come into contact with Hospital ters and said they’re taking people that experience so next day get a train to ke go to St Michaels um they have another like speak about yourself and we’ll put you somewhere thing get put in like a team which was like a ambulance um so we’re in a [ __ ] basement of some Hotel there for a couple of weeks go back to ke there for maybe a week then go to the hospital in s denet there for a couple of weeks then that was like as several donets was getting encircled and so they wanted to go um and we did and we went to Lia but at that point I was like [ __ ] this like I I don’t want to do like like initially like that was the best thing I could get into or the the first thing I came across I was like I’ll do that but like getting guys brought in from the front that have been [ __ ] up while I’m sitting I mean the hospital got shelled but like I’m sitting in a [ __ ] Hospital behind the lies and they thought it was going to get in circles they’re like okay we’re going like no um so I decided then like once I get back I’m [ __ ] finding a unit like I can’t sit with my like this doesn’t sit right this is not the kind of thing I want to be doing um so then I went to Avan bahun we had training for a couple of weeks and then went to lisans which was all right like the same [ __ ] as everywhere else November the 5th maybe I got here November 6 7th 8th I got hit um was in hospital for a month broke contract not to go to Military Hospital uh stayed in key for a couple of weeks cuz I still had the stitches in and so I got the stitches out went back to UK um back the UK submitted the thing to like get my passport renewed I got my passport came back and then started the like paperwork to rejoin and got back in [Music] April um Before the War I really did not know where Ukraine was I thought it was some part of of East Russia or something um I am ashamed to say it now but um so my main motivation for coming here was a the military motivation but also the humanitarian uh motivation however it was only really when I got to Ukraine and I met the people and and I saw the cities and I got introduced to the culture and the language uh that I really started seeing what we’re fighting for here and why it’s so important that we’re fighting for this country because it is a beautiful country with so much potential that just must not be wasted in my country um I don’t know I was in the Army in 2014 when things started off um like I got in the Army to go out Afghanistan but that just ended when I finally got through training and got posted um so me and my whole platoon that I did training with were bummed out and we got posted and it was maybe 6 months and then you know the helicopters flew over Crimea and um our Battalion Commander gave us a briefing and we all thought we were going to war in the Ukraine and that’s the first I heard about it um we never came here to combat or got deployed the only thing that happened was um some of the guys from my Battalion were sent to the West uh Western Ukraine to train with ukrainians kind of as a deterrent I don’t think it worked but they got to go to another country um yeah that’s it really started following what happens in Ukraine uh in 2014 when Russia temporary occupied Crimean Peninsula which is part of Ukraine naturally and I also follow news what happens in luhansk and in donet and I actively followed the for example the battle for donet airport and what happened in hariv I actively followed those events in 2014 and so on so that was that was what I knew about Ukraine I kept for a long time uh a pretty Keen pulse on kind of global conflict and just kind of following stuff to kind of keep up to date with what’s going on because I mean war is a very it’s the most violent and significant ific thing that happens like politically right like sure you can have trade embargos or different presidents and trade agreements and all this stuff but war is like the the great changer in in you know like a political aspect right so yeah I was aware of uh the maidan protests I was aware of the Divergence between what your president said and what your president did oh let’s get closer to Europe never mind let’s get closer to Russia and then everyone obviously coming out and protesting with the students and then the kids and the parents and um and kind of I I remember tracking or not tracking but kind of observing people tracking like Russian VK accounts um and like oh this guy is a this guy is a serving serving soldier in the vdv and now he’s on holiday in denet right he’s he’s a vacationer in denet but he’s an active duty Soldier and there he is standing with an AK outside of you know outside a council building right like taking over it and all the other stuff that happened like yeah I followed it for a long time obviously after 2015 with the ceasefire it’s kind of just you were throwing throwing shells towards each other back and forth and then oh we didn’t shoot you no we didn’t shoot you and yeah but when February 24th came around actually I I tracked it on stream for for like a week two weeks I was kind of updating people with what’s going on and and kind of watching cameras you know like the the security cameras and stuff that you could see oh there’s a Russian BMP driving into like all of the significant events of that first part um I followed in great detail I regret not coming out sooner um I’ll be honest I was I was comfortable by home but the longer it went on in 2022 the more I felt uncomfortable like there are people out there fighting there are foreigners out there fighting I have the skill set to go and help why am I sitting at home why am I sitting at home when my training geared me up to fight this enemy why am I sitting at home when you know my training put me in the situation to be able to fight this enemy so you know there there are people in Ukraine like I said earlier on there are people in Ukraine don’t want this war have no experience of this war there are people in the military that have never been in the military before that don’t want to be in the military right like at the end of the day you are your people not everyone wants to be a professional Soldier and there’s nothing wrong with that but for those of us that were professional soldiers and for those of us that it was our job why are we not helping right like we we’ve done our time we’ve got out we’re now available to come and help thankfully a lot of foreigners have could always use more but uh yeah I regret not coming out sooner before coming here I knew very little all I was aware of it was a former Soviet country it wanted to join NATO there was the Crimean War which when I was in high school I had to write papers about so that was kind of my introduction but besides that um very little I didn’t know much about the culture or the people or the language um I saw maybe like memes and stuff you know like Slavic memes but besides that not a lot just just what I’d seen on the news really [Music] um when I first came to UK CR I was expecting everything to be devastated I I was expecting everything to look like a World War II documentary tanks driving everywhere gunshots in the distance all cities destroyed uh so I was very very surprised when I came to leiv and it was a western City and uh it didn’t look like a dirty Village somewhere in in Russia they do exist here but um so so that was a that was a big surprise and also how much variety there is going from L all the way to the east um how different the cities are how different The Villages and and the cultures are the languages and and the behavior of people um I was very surprised by that I was a bit negatively surprised by how few people actually speak English um usually on on my travels English was never never really issue as long as you speak English you will find a way to get around um here you’re quite reliant on Google translate sometimes um but all in all what surprised me the the absolute most is how beautiful this country is the yeah I don’t know I don’t think there there needs to be said anymore of I was actually surprised when I got here how similar to the West Ukraine is it is a lot more Western than I had anticipated obviously there’s there’s significant Eastern European uh aspects to it because it’s eastern Europe I hate your squat toilets just the little ceramic slabs in the floor with a hole not a fan of that um public toilets tend to suck like really suck like it’s just a slab of concrete with a hole in the floor and you’re lucky if there’s any toilet paper but I mean it’s part the national I think ukrainians in general like the vast majority of the houses here are homebuilt right like handbuilt like they’re built by someone there’s no like big development company that’s coming around and building like entire Estates it’s this house is different to this house is different to this house ukrainians are very very um motivated to kind of do their own stuff I think individualistic not individualistic um independent but also like if if necessary like they’ll give you the shirt off their back like ukrainians are very very helpful very kind the amount of times that I have with my limited Ukrainian and Russian just walked up to a Ukrainian and said hey can you help me with this and they’ll go and they’ll get on their phone and they call someone and they’ll be like I know a guy like that that sense of like I think there’s something that we’ve lost in the west um just that sense of like without obligation just helping somebody for the sake of helping somebody happens a lot more here like if I walk up to somebody if I go home to Cardiff and I walk up to somebody and say hey can you help you find this they just go use your phone or they or they’ll ignore you and then here it’s like yeah cool let me invest like half an hour an hour of my day that I would have been doing something else to help you because you asked like that kind of personal connection the conversation maybe that’s just because we’re foreign soldiers but I don’t think so um ukrainians are great man I have a lot of respect for ukrainians I’d see like in the cities the food is a lot better than expected isn’t really what the question’s aiming for but like the standard of restaurant here compared to the UK and what you’ll pay for it like I realize wages are lower but and just the quality of services is like places are cleaner architecture is nicer I like the [ __ ] kind of comei block because you’ve got much more green space within residential areas which in the UK newer buildings there’ll be like a cursory attempt to it okay sorry I’m looking at the but yeah the I like the architecture was surprisingly nice people yeah surprisingly friendly I guess given the circumstances it’s not like that it’s a war and everyone’s quite Pro Army now and being foreign and being in the Army is maybe makes that more so but um to a degree like the amount of Soviet hangover I couldn’t like pick out specific examples but like there are times when you think like this is some [ __ ] from the Soviet Union still the resilience of the people like despite what they’re up against this massive onslaught of Orcs they’re still holding out yeah it’s just impressive to see how fiercely these people fight for their country so I can really uh I can get along with that mentality you know the Russians they the Russians [ __ ] around so now they’re finding out the hard way that they can’t just bully people as a Finn the most surprising thing about when I came to Ukraine was the friendliness and kindness of the Ukrainian people doesn’t matter if they’re from the west or east they are always there to help you they’re always so happy to and happily coming to assist you if you need help uh they’re so happily giving food if you even when you’re not asking it that’s that’s uh something that I was very uh surprised and I’m still still surprised as in Finland we don’t have such a such a thing such kindness we are very welcome here like as soon as a Ukrainian most of the time not always but quite often as soon as a Ukrainian knows that you’re a foreigner and you’re here to fight and you’re here to help they’re like let me help you um which sometimes is a bit overwhelming it’s like I bought all of my own equipment I say I bought I fundraised a lot of my own equipment before I came here because I didn’t want to come here and take an IAC or body armor or a helmet or you know clothing from a Ukrainian and the way that I the way that I perceived it was if I bring my own then I don’t take from their stores not saying that there’s a shortage of anything CU there’s not it’s not like you know we’re in dire need to the point where there’s nothing available and you have to buy your own stuff no there is stuff available but if I didn’t bring it then I would have taken it and now it’s available for someone else and there’s one spit do you know what I mean so it it can be very overwhelming um sometimes when we’re just here to help man and and you know ukrainians are like we want to help you let let us do this for you this Let’s help you with this let’s help you with that it sometimes it’s like yeah it’s overwhelming it’s I wouldn’t want to say flattering I think flattering is the wrong word but it’s there’s a good there’s a good kind of mutual respect you know what I mean I think a lot of guys who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan and of course Vietnam um they weren’t very well liked sometimes but like it’s an entirely different aspect here because we’re part of the Ukrainian military and we’re helping Ukrainian military it’s not like we’re a foreign Invader like our opposites from the [Music] East so only the conscription service in Finland I was on the Finnish Navy but um on the coastal forces uh I was training to become a Navy boarding team like uh it’s a sort of finish border uh how would you say Border guard of the Navy like um to inspect ships and so on but I was a little uh nuisance to my company Commander so they kicked me out of that and uh I just did my service as a military police uh in the Canadian Army I was a mobile um C9 Gunner so like the American M249 Canadians called a C9 that was my gun um so we operated in a battalion of lav sixes which are like um kind of like your version of a BTR um that’s our lab six uh so I was a a soldier in the rear we roll up as the gun shoot Boots the ramp drops I was the Gunner so I’d be the first one out and cover fire while we all Dismount and attack with the with the lav and that was basically my role I had I was trained um to be a um the turret Gunner as well but that was just um to get extra training in a different role but I was just a a gunner that’s a very good question you know and I think this being my third Army rather than second it gives me a lot more insight I know a lot of people that have all their military service and come to Ukraine having it be their second army or their second military experience they they’re kind of like rigid in what they expect me going from the United States to the French Foreign Legion do some rep to here I realized on that first jump you have to let go of all expectations you know if you expect anything or you’re hard pressed for any kind of timelines that will Jam you up cognitively and spiritually you just have to let go of all your expectations and just be as effective as you can against the enemy what I definitely could tell you I didn’t expect was I never expect to have such a great leadership um people like mman radic you know Cartman you know great great leaders but especially um our our Battalion EXO our former company Commander uh Kenobi great leader I would say uh by far the most combat efficient awesome officer anybody could possibly ever work with not just in the Ukrainian military but probably in the whole world we couldn’t have landed in a better place you know working for Kenobi is a a great great honor and privilege and I am truly lucky to be working for such a great Ukrainian officer great dude I mean it’s it’s an aspect of leading by example as well um I haven’t I haven’t been here that long but the reputation of our commander precedes itself like there is a reason why this company is known for what it’s known for is because it starts at the Top If you have a you know a a combat shy I wouldn’t say coward I think that’s that’s too reductive but if you have like say a combat shy or insecure or not confident leader that trickles down to your platoon commanders trickles down to your squad leaders trickles down to your men women um but if you have that high standard from the top that high standard is expected to be maintained all the way down that’s the way it works back home as [Music] well [Music] for for for [Music] uh [Music] say for for for for for for for for for for for uh X for [Music] for per [Music] for for for so my first or there’s three uh experiences in in the in combat that uh I will remember for the rest of my life so first first was in P PKA 27th of September 2022 uh when we fought against three Uh Russian PMP 2ms and against infantry uh they were a mechanized company I suppose and uh the most memorable thing about that day was when someone was yelling for a medic in finish and U me and my Irish friend were there with anti-tank weapon we were listening to his yells and we ditched the anti-tank weapon as we were in front of the group trying to uh get a visual to this tank and the fire it but uh we ditched the anti-tank weapon we went to sea over this fence that where is our friend and he was lying in the middle of this road and fire just uh BMP was firing at him it was firing at our comrades a little bit farther back and then we made a quick and Rapid decision to run and rescue our friend because no man shall be left behind and we received fire intensive fire but we just run run run grabbed our friend and pulled him to safety and then next day was also we very hard we took a lot of casualties in form of wounded Personnel so the first time there is a uh case of multiple wounded personel that was uh that’s a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life there was uh lot of uh different type of wounds artillery wounds shrapnel around the body uh one shrapnel uh one patient uh had a shrapnel gone through his head uh but he was still responding to my commands and um he moved and tried to talk to me he just couldn’t open his eyes and then um that was uh it was a hard situation as the place where I took care of my patients was just few meters uh from these Russians who were inside the store they fortified the store and they were inside there we couldn’t uh take off from there with the wounded personnel as we received heavy fire we couldn’t go forward as we didn’t really know what was in for in in front of us and I wanted to keep those guys alive so I only had uh one option and it was the treat them there and third uh experience was when I got wounded uh we were assaulting this small town in hansk and we were in position ready for movement and Russians shelled us with uh cluster Munitions uh three times and then fourth time was when they hit us they hit destroyed our whole platoon uh seven men was wounded and one was uh killed in action and I was I got some shrapnel into my leg as I Was preparing my backpack and ready for movement next thing I remember I was thrown by the shock wave maybe a meter or two into these uh trees and I learned I I had to relearn how to breathe again it was very difficult and then um I I remember seeing this RPG ammunition backpack filled with RPG Warheads on fire so I made the decision to crawl uh maybe 20 M uh behind to the point where uh some of our guys were and I started to apply a tourniquet and then I just lost this sense of my hands I couldn’t feel my hands and then I started to feel very sleepy but thankfully my friend brother came to me and applied the thit and probably saved my life so those are the three experiences three experiences that uh I will remember for the rest of my life so I’ve got I’ve got to think for a moment to find the ones that we don’t need to censor afterwards um I would say my my first mission was actually quite quite exciting um because there were at least four moments on that mission at least three where where I’m absolutely certain I should have died um the first one was as we were walking to our position through a tree line and all of a sudden the shell explodes like 3 meters next to me Heat Wave rushing over me knocks me to the ground and I’m checking myself thinking if I could feel the heat wave there has to be some holes in me not a scratch not even my uniform had a had a scratch in it and our medic just looks at me he’s like you okay I’m like I think so he’s like good keep walking then okay I keep walking and I take three steps in another shell lens this close next to me and doesn’t explode and I’m looking at that grenade in there just thinking okay just keep moving just keep moving just keep moving and we get to through the next position and we get to some ukrainians and we ask them if there’s other positions further on down the line and they’re like ah there’s like two or three people there but you should dig in here with us it’s safer there the Russians are very close there you should dig in with us and our platoon Commander told them no we’re supposed to go further we will go further so we go out of there and not even a minute afterwards that entire position just gets completely annihilated by Russian artillery and I was just thinking if we had left or arrived there a minute later we would all be dead every single one of us would be dead um so that that was quite crazy um and another one that that I kind of like was uh in one of the villages where we were after my guard Duty I I went to sleep and I wake up looking into a bunch of very pale faces and I asked them why they’re all looking so grim and they were like how can you sleep through this I was like sleep through what and in that moment a tank shell explodes right in front of the bunker so much dirt and debris being blown into the room and I was like oh that sounds like war huh and it kept going on for another two hours they kept shelling us like every 15 seconds one of those shells would land within 5 meters of us and I just slept through an hour of that and and I I was like how so we were the village that we were based in and had positions in for this year which has now been recaptured because they gave it to the 32nd and they lost it um so like there’s Village here and [ __ ] a tree line leading down and we were moving to take it yeah November and like Kraken and mechanize were moving in as well and we were holding to wait for the order to move um kind of we were getting some [ __ ] either side of the tree line that was getting a bit closer and then just as we get the order to move it like lands in the tree line so I guess they were bracketing it and there were 12 of us and [ __ ] five or six guys got hit and one got killed mostly on like our end of the line all got some sort of [ __ ] and the other end was fine I think clusters but oh and it set off our RPGs so like I think there was like a secondary explosion from that as well um which got that was RPG right no like cluster cluster it was a yeah cluster initially and then RPG I think like yeah we look over and there’s the [ __ ] the RPG bags burning and the [ __ ] Medics like crawling away with a big [ __ ] hole in his leg cuz like he sees the bag he’s like [ __ ] I’m getting away from that [ __ ] um um yeah cluster I think but that’s what on the paper it said like 120 mil cluster I think yeah so our last mission which was my first mission since I’ve been back in the Ukraine this year also my first time being on the offensive um my first assault um it was a tree line assault [Music] um very early morning so it was a little bit dark um stepping off into the assault uh that’s the same thing like the shittiest thing I find here it’s um it’s walking towards the unknown you don’t know where the Russians are hiding if there’s any how many what they have so it’s um you know it’s a little stressful but it was also like really exciting [Music] um we encountered [Music] [Applause] we encountered Russians they’re [Applause] gone and uh H uh so we completed the assault successfully we eliminated the Russians that were there we held the position um encountered some more Russians who they’re also now gone and um we exfilled we had some really close calls but everyone’s alive um so it was a successful [Music] mission that is a loaded question that is a loaded question um um honestly you got to give your enemy respect where respect is due there are some hard fighs there are some motivated guys but there are also a lot of guys that are you know well impoverished there are a lot of guys that are alcoholics a lot of guys that are drug addicts um and each unit that you fight is different um we fought some Russian PMC groups we fought some Russian paratroopers we’ve we fought you know Russians of every type you know some are a lot more motivated than others what I what I will say is that it’s almost most of the time when you ask that question when you see Fighters fighting for the Russian Federation they’re not ethnic Russians if you go 18.5 kilometers in its direction you will see scores of Russian bodies but if you look at them they’re like dogistan or they’re like ethnic Mong in the French Foreign Legion I got to work with a guy called Sergeant saroya completely crazy guy they’re all they’re all direct s some Kangaskhan but you got a lot of like Eastern Eastern ethnic Russian you know Mongols you know and and I feel like they’re being used as canf you know for like maybe ethnic Russian officers and you got the the dogani and chians out there you know fighting for Russians you know it’s well when we when we push through Russian dead bodies you don’t see ethnic Russians you know it’s it’s almost it is what it is you know uh I believe most of the Russian Fighters that we see most especially the dead ones they’re all been used by ethnic Russians as Canon FS I’m talking about ethnic Mongols ethnic chians dogmans and people from the far flung out like poor Village People you know being manipulated and used by the Russian Federation you know um and it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s pretty sad you know it’s it’s pretty sad honestly you know in my experience um it’s a bit mixed you’ll often have most of the time they they seem under equipped underprepared and don’t have the will to fight I think a lot of the fortunately for me a lot of the people we’ve been fighting don’t want fight um we’ve seen a lot of situations especially on the Drone footage uh where one explosion goes off near them they drop their gun and they start running like outside of the tree line completely in the open through a Minefield and it’s like all right I guess he’s done for the day continue the fight um yeah but then there’s sometimes where there’s just so many of them like you know there’ll be 80 of them and five of us and uh yeah that’s that’s where the the N the qual no the quantity over quality starts to take effect but for the most part from my personal experience um yeah they’re not the best they they really do the bare minimum that they have to and then they’ll try and either leave surrender or they’ll just panic and die sometimes we had one guy where we found him all by himself uh way ahead of the other positions and I don’t think he realized that the rest of his men ran away he was sitting in a bush and we walked right up to him he was maybe 5 me away fired some shots off um one of our guys it was a close call but he’s okay and then we just had like six people just turn and open up on this bush um yeah and he just we found him like in the fetal position still twitching just riddled with holes yeah is uh pretty brutal but he he panicked and uh a lot of the time we we try and yell out like surrender or rugy ver put your hands up um but unfortunately they they choose to fight and we’re better Fighters than them so we haven’t had to fight any special forces yet that might be a different story they have a lot more intent they’re a lot more willing to fight to fight for longer and harder and they have better equipment too um so that’ll be a different story but for the most part they really don’t the Mobic the mobilized people we fight don’t want to be here they’re really old or really young they’re underere equipped they don’t have a lot of ammunition they um yeah I don’t know mix bag I I’d say which part they’re good um the movement from from huge military personnel back in uh deep behind the uh zero line they’re good and we seeing that that the Russians have less and less soldiers but they’re still ready moving our vdv so Airborne units from kopans to bahm and from bahm to saporia and up and down and and the ukrainians kill more and more by himr back also they kill the logistics but they’re still like ready somehow to move units material like um gear from tanks to ammunition to everything from A to B all around Ukraine I mean never under arrest your enemy uh be honest they still have enough tanks they’re still not the best of course they still have enough artery enough shells but we we coming we are already on the point that from the perspective from the ukrainians the uttery fire from the Russians was the um main advantage but now after the Russians had this main advantage we are coming like on almost the same even better because the Ukrainian forces using Western World technology they’re not wasting shells they’re really like they drone teams when you talk with drone teams they’re outside searching days and days for valuable targets they’re not wasting shells on like three or five guys what the Russian are do doing we saw that multiple missions because we are clever enough now the Jets are coming we are uh no

In this first hand Ukraine war documentary movie we get a detailed rare glimpse in to the experience of foreign fighters also known as Legionaries.

They share their stories and combat experience with us in interesting interviews out in the open despite the dangers of the modern battlefield.

Dive in and liste to their stories as they explain their motivation, why they fight and what they witnessed so far.

Also make sure to watch the video till the end to remind yourself that all this is real!

Legionaires Part I
Production: Teracast production
Producer: Alex Muzyka
Design: Elvis

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