“A Texas software developer and a cook in British Columbia are among dozens of Americans and Canadians answering Ukraine’s call for foreign volunteers to fight Russia’s invasion.
With their governments refusing to send troops to Ukraine out of fear of sparking a world war, Americans and Canadians told Reuters they were inspired by Ukrainians’ fierce resistance. Many believe their democratic rights will be threatened at home if they do nothing to defend Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Sunday for the formation of an “international legion.” Some young volunteers are traveling straight to Ukraine to enlist.
Others are applying at Ukrainian embassies and consulates before quitting jobs or dropping out of university.
The mobilization was taking place as Russian artillery bombarded Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv on Monday, the fifth day of conflict.
“I feel guilty to not go,” said Dax, 26, a veteran of the elite U.S. 82nd Airborne Division infantry, who planned to deploy with other former U.S. military personnel. Like many volunteers, the Alabama native declined to give his full name amid discussion on social media of the need to keep their identities and movements secret for security reasons.
Canadian Bryson Woolsey quit his job as a cook on Sunday after seeing Zelenskiy’s appeal. He has no military training and plans to buy a plane ticket to Poland, cross into Ukraine and volunteer for combat.
“I felt like I had to do something,” said Woolsey, 33, of Powell River, British Columbia, who became restless as he watched images of wounded women and children in Ukraine.
Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly on Sunday told reporters it was up to individual Canadians to decide whether they wanted to join Ukraine’s international brigade. The U.S. Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment.” Newsmax
Comment” A crowd of “hopeless romantics.” I curse myself and hold my manhood cheap that I am such an aged wreck … pl
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/zewlenskyy/2022/02/28/id/1058951/
Zelensky’s call to suit up….
https://youtu.be/kgOSrw9Q8rc?t=30
But will A. Vindman answer?
Schmuck
He would need Army permission.
What is this video supposed to prove? If anything, it makes Putin look even more incompetent.
These volunteers need to be told to watch Mearsheimer on YouTube before they buy that plane ticket.
I had a CDN friend who enlisted in Maine and after training was killed the first week he joined the US troops in Vietnam.
There is no Vietnam war memorial for Commonwealth soldiers who thought they were doing the right thing.
John Anderson
I knew quite a few Canadians in the US Army in VN. The Canadian government stripped them of Canadian citizenship as an act of gratitude for the many Americans who served in the Canadian armed forces in WW1 and 2.
May the least corrupt side win. Whatever happens please don’t bring back any of these kids as orphans. There is currently no re-integration program I know of to deal with something on this level:
https://youtu.be/CpV16BQfbrQ
“Canadian Bryson Woolsey quit his job as a cook on Sunday after seeing Zelenskiy’s appeal. He has no military training and plans to buy a plane ticket to Poland, cross into Ukraine and volunteer for combat. ‘I felt like I had to do something,’ said Woolsey, 33, of Powell River, British Columbia, who became restless as he watched images of wounded women and children in Ukraine.”
He’s old enough to make his own choices – but I wonder what he would have done if he had seen images of the wounded women and children in Donbass who were shelled for years by Ukrainian artillery, too.
I think these volunteer guys are very lucky. They don’t have time to get to and join the Ukrainian army that is on the Donetsk front. If they did they would either be killed or taken prisoner. I don’t know how many Ukrainian soldiers are in this sector east of the river, but it’s just about over for them, one way or the other. Their army is going to be destroyed. They are in a trap. What I think will happen to them in, say, 96 hours is what happened to the German army under Eric von Manstein in the Cherkasy Pocket from 24 January -16 February 1944. This is what military professionals call a ‘double envelopment’. It took place west of Cherkasy, a pleasant Dnieper river city on a great reservoir that is some four or five miles wide which lies about 118 miles below Kiev (Kyiv). The difference is that the envelopment will be on the east side of the river.
Where will this happen? I would guess that at the moment the sixty miles between Zaporizhia north to Dnipro are an area that one should keep an eye on. But the escaping Ukrainian remnants may be forced further north looking for other bridge crossings. It is interesting to me that the Germans had that same interest in where the likely crossings would be, such as at Kremenchuk, Zaporizhzia, or Nikopol. Though their interest was defense, not escape. What has happened now, I think, is that after the city of Melitopol fell, a great deal was decided. Melitopol lies about 78 miles south of Zaporizhia. (This is. interestingly, a famous Cossack region and a lot of it is Orthodox.)
The Russian army is pushing north on the east side of the river towards a place called Tokmak , or it is already there, and will keep on going north as fast as it can. And in a few days, it will also be moving up the western side. A crossing in the south has been made that also opens up the possibility of taking Odessa.
The Russian army has already gone east from Melitopol towards Mariupol. It is wrapping up the northern coast of the Sea of Azov. It has gotten most of it. They have to get Mariupol, but there seems to be a developing hostage situation there. There has apparently been an amphibious landing somewhere off the Sea of Azo. I thought the clean-looking gray and white camouflage paint job on some APCs looked like they might be Russian marines who had been on those landing ships. Beroyansk, a small naval facility, and a resort area could have been bypassed if need be, but I think that it has been taken. Some citizens there may be demonstrating or showing militance, but it is too late. Open Source Tik-Tok dash-cam, cell phone, geo-located video–call it what you will– has revealed remarkable indifference to the Russian ‘invader’ among the populace in this region. You can see men standing around, some taking videos, I assume, as Russian APCs go through their city. There doesn’t seem to be much threat from IEDs at all. There don’t seem to be snipers. You see ten or twenty tanks moving at thirty-five to forty miles per hour along decent highways through an entirely different-looking countryside than footage in the north shows, such as at the highly populated Bryansk railroad center and staging area in Russia. No snow, for one thing, it is flatter, and it looks like there could even be drought. The inactivity and apparent acceptance were noticeable at Melitopol. I don’t think these people are loyal to the Ukrainian government. I’ve seen furtively shot video footage in a built-up area showing small numbers of troops patrolling behind an armored vehicle who are clearly alert but not under stress. So I accept that Melitopol has fallen, and that was indicated by some Rusian soldiers formally taking down the blue and yellow flag and an official announcement. And that has been decisive.
I believe that the war in the south will be decided very soon and that there is going to be a tremendous shock in the west when it happens. I think the prisoners will be treated with respect, paroled, and sent home.
Sir thank you so much for detailed explanation of the progress or lack there of the Russian operation in Ukraine. Your comment “I believe that the war in the south will be decided very soon and that there is going to be a tremendous shock in the west when it happens. ” I doubt very much. The west has bought itself the CoolAide they were selling the happless Exceptional populations. Not too long ago America was a Racist Bigoted Country to the extent even the founding fathers and their satutes were desecrated all over the country, even Teddy Roosevelt statue was removed in NYC (the greatest shining city on the mountain) now all the media is about poor middle class White Ukranians seeking refugee in Poland not like those scum bags from Syria / Libya / Africa. I bet you the Exceptional populations will buy into this new narratives and take on the BLM / Antifa. Or may be even they will take down statues of Martin Luther King. All of a sudden Saint / God Fauci disappears from the scene and Mask mandates are removed. Gosh that Goddamn Putin (Hitler incarnate) knows how to cure us of Cov-19. How the narratives change seemlessly
Tidewater: Can you recommend a decent map on the web that shows the places you mentioned?
(Just the places would be enough. The army positions change day-to-day.)
Keith H.
Wikipedia has a decent map at 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. But as you mention the situation is dynamic.
KH – Does this help? Not sure of its reliability but I’ve been checking it out nevertheless:
https://twitter.com/Suriyakmaps
It’s enticing at first, but a retired soldier can’t do this without encountering pitfalls.
The emolument clause of the US Constitution will come in to play unless the retired soldier gets permission from both of service branch and the state department.
https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/ukraine/2022/02/27/want-to-go-fight-for-ukraine-heres-what-to-do/
Condottiere
Yes. When I was DATT in Saudi I had to get such clearances for retired American soldiers who worked for Saudia airlines which belongs to MODA. I don’t remember that they needed permission for State.
I tried to fight for Armenia in the first Nagorno-Karabakh war. There were a lot of hurdles. State Dept said “no”, at which point the penalty for doing it anyhow is to become akin to something like a terrorist.
You should volunteer now Eric. There is lots of anti-Armenian agitprop going on in the Donbas. The RNU and NazBois fighting for LDR/DNR want to kill and/or deport Armenians and any other non-Slavic citizens from Russia.
Leith,
For a retired USMC wing WO you seem to have a wealth of information on the minutia of every situation in the world. Second career with some narrative creating firm? Hobby? Have you considered taking up fishing?
Hi Eric –
I did serve two tours with the airedales. And spent another 15 to 16 years with combat engineers and with the grunts and artillery as an S2 and even one tour as G2 weenie. No time in hi-level IC like others here. But even in retirement I try to keep up with what is happening in the world.
I fish and golf, badly but I keep at it. Had to stop hunting recently as I’m too old (~80) and cranky to spend much time in the woods, plus it’s too dangerous out there now with all the city bozos blasting away with semi-autos. I’ve never worked PR or spin, I believe in hard facts.
If you’re young enough you really should consider joining a reborn Operation Nemesis and go after these scum that want to start another Armenian Genocide. I went to high school with Greek and Armenian kids whose families had fled the pogroms in Turkey. Don’t let another death march happen again.
I remember an NCO in one of my old units that was a Muslim. While in the USMC he saved up leave for two years then took the maximum allowed (60 days) to go fight with the mujahadeen against the Soviets.
I heard of a guy like that. Was he Egyptian?
Damn right. Let’s go Brandon!
Goota keep the fear porn going. The atchoo flu scam’s fading. So just switch narratives.
And it’s dobleplusgood, ‘cos if we keep this going till the midterms, then… well… we can’t hold elections. Because… you know… The Science: It would be undemocratic!!
Ah, so these guys have no agency. They’re grist for the DNC mill. The dunces!
I never bought into Bush’s mushroom cloud fearmongering, Obama’s kind intentions in Syria or the BS about Trump being a Russian asset. I also think Putin has legitimate concerns with regards to NATO and NATO along with funding for the Cold War trifecta should end. I don’t think I would care if Putin stopped his advance at Luhansk and Donetsk but Ukraine doesn’t deserve to lie down and get steamrolled into submission for past mistakes.
Oh by the way Lesly did you notice how Condi conveniently ignored the real Mushroom Clouds that will prop up all over our heads by Putin’s Russia. But she had no problem to peddle the Fake Mushroom clouds of Saddam. The so called MSM just gobbles it up.
Stop spreading FAKE NEWS. You will be labeled Putin’s enabler.
Your not wrong, everything is now on the table. The unstoppable is about to meet the immovable, I don’t see how the US or Russia can back down now. I guess the US powers that be are expecting the damage to be contained in Europe. Good luck with that : (
The war is turning heavily in Russia’s favor. It looks like they have air supremacy now and are bombing targets with little resistance. Their fancy high tech missiles seem to work well too, now that they finally started to use them. The more time passes, the more it is clear 95%+ of the info put out by the Ukrainian side is Baghdad Bob level propaganda. Anyone going there will not turn the tide and will quite possibly get themselves killed.
Incidentally, I’ve been following the ruble. I expected it to get absolutely crushed on Monday. It ended the day 31% down. Today it recovered a bit. This is bad but absolutely not devastating, and I expected much worse from the toughest state-to-state financial sanctions in human history. Russia has yet to respond (they are so slow, aren’t they? It took forever for them to invade too). Putin did sign a few orders, the Russian markets are not to accept any stock sales by foreigners, and a ban on Russians sending money out of the country. I suspect Russia will nationalize American and European assets in Russia, which are quite substantial, in the $500 billion range. As recompense for the central bank asset freeze. Medvedev said as much. And Russia is an enormous capital exporter. Rich Russians take their money out of the country to live the high life in Western Europe. If this stops or significantly decreases, there will be a lot more money sloshing around inside Russia.
If you were rich, hey maybe you are, and some foreign country threatened to freeze your bank account, you’d move your money, right? Nothing like fast capital moving home. If the banks here threatened, in the name of Democracy, to freeze my accounts, wait…..been there done that.
Cheers Mal
Sean,
I consider myself an expert on Baghdad bobbing myself, it is very clear to me that anything being put out by Ukraine in the past days is coming straight from Bob’s mouth. Western MSM and many politicians appear to take it hook line sinker. The bloviating about “Putin’s humiliation” and thousands of russian casualties in the face of the molotov-wielding blonde supermodels of ukraine is almost too much to bear and will lead to a rude awakening as the war truly starts. One example among many: that story late last week about those 13 Ukrainian honor guards on an island supposedly being blown up after telling a warship to **** off, confirmed as BS yesterday. The initial russian narrative was the truth: surrender of the ~100 ukrainian servicemen on the island.
Plenty of foreign fighters with the LDR and DNR forces. Including not only Russian & Chechen; but also some neo-Nazis from Hungary, Serbia (Chetniks of Srebenica infamy), Spain, Germany, Brazil, et al.
And others maybe not Nazis but Russophiles or Putinistas from Ossetia, Poland, Latvia, Belarus, and Uzbekistan. Plus there are those volunteers sucked in by Russian disinformation from France, Greece & Italy and other countries. Someone here a few days ago mentioned an American or two fighting in Donetsk for the Peoples Republics.
OT: another certain American-Canadian connection fighting for truth, justice and the American Way – Eric Croomer of Dominion Voting Systems refuses to answer the call in face of eye witnesses who recorded his car accident with their video cameras.
Croomer is arrested for leaving the scene of an accident. Finally admits he was under a lot of stress and panicked, to excuse why lied about causing this accident repeatedly to investigating officials.
A 15 minute view of US law enforcement in action, facing down a dindunuffin perpetrator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vUUHFCTRjw
NB: curious minds wonder what “stresses” Dominion is facing right now.
Oh, is that all there is to it? What’s to prevent me – let’s just imagine I am a billionaire – from assembling my own mail-order military to go knock over some pissant country that has abundant natural resources? All I would need to do is…uhhh….oh, Goddamn. Fucking international law!!!
https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/icruftm/icruftm.html
If you recruit fighters who are not your countrymen – and under certain circumstances, even if they are; it is forbidden under the Ukrainian Constitution, for example, to raise a private army – and you plan to pay them, then they are mercenaries. And that is against international law. I suspect even if you promised to not pay them, that would not constitute a loophole.
Of course, when you are insufferably cute and the flavour of the month – I have actually seen photographs of Zelensky with the caption “A Hero Emerges”, and they were not trying to be funny – then the rules do not apply to you. Remember Kevin Costner in “A Perfect World?” “Let’s understand each other: stealin’s wrong. But if you need somethin’ real bad, an’ you ain’t got the money? It’s okay to take a loaner on the item. S’what you call an exception”.
I’m pretty confident the Colonel would agree with me that volunteers with no military experience whatever, imbued with zeal to ‘do the right thing’, are a liability rather than an asset. Ukraine might send them straight out to be killed – probably would, considering it could be spun for more international pathos – but a unit made up mostly of short-order cooks, taxi-drivers and shelf-stackers from Wal-Mart is about as likely to achieve any strategic gains as it is likely there will be another Elvis tour. With the real Elvis.
On the bright side, you might not have to be really killed. You might be like Bernie Gores, the first American killed in Ukraine, when he stepped on a mine laid by Russian saboteurs. Sad, yes, I know. A bit easier to take this time, though, since he was also killed in Kabul last August.
https://stolzuntermenschen.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-ukrainian-operation-day-four.html
Mark
You really think “international law” matters in a situation like this? As to training there are many, many ex-military men who are available. Are you a lawyer?
Is it against the Ukrainian Constitution to bribe an American politician by hiring the son of a US Vice President with a fake job?
One would think that if the powers that be were really interested in the environment, a logical course would be some serious global diplomacy, but instead we get endless wars, how evil the Russians are and cow farts are dangerous to the climate.
I don’t see any reason why this doesn’t keep spiraling into world war. Homo sapiens prove to be no more than monkeys throwing shit.