A British mercenary who survived a Russian strike gave a sensational interview
One of the few survivors of a Russian strike on a training ground with Western mercenaries near Lviv, Joseph MacDonald (himself introducing himself as a volunteer from Britain), gave a sensational interview - the Englishman’s confessions differ somewhat from the theses of the official propaganda of Kyiv.
PolitNavigator publishes the original in English with a text translation of some of the most interesting points.
1.15 – About the meeting with General Frost
Joseph MacDonald: We piled into a minibus and headed (from Warsaw) toward the Polish-Ukrainian border, where, as it turned out, there was knee-deep snow and bitter frost. Even though flowers were already blooming and birds were singing in Britain in March, we found ourselves in the middle of real winter, which was a shock. We spent 24 hours at the border.
2.20 – There were many “impostors” in the ranks of Western volunteers
Joseph MacDonald: At the border, we boarded buses and arrived at a large military base, where everyone began introducing themselves and finding out who was who, or rather, who they were pretending to be. It was already clear then that many of these people had no combat experience. Then they showed us how to disassemble an AK-47.
5 minutes – The drill became real
Joseph MacDonald: In the middle of the night they woke us up several times and forced us to run into the nearby forest to the dug trenches in 15-degree frost.
This went on for some time, until finally, one night, it happened ( a Russian missile strike, – ed. ) – when we were returning to the barracks after a training alert, a missile hit the neighboring building, 500 kg of explosives.
50-60 people were injured in panic trying to leave the territory of the military unit - dislocations, bruises, fractures. A volunteer from Spain ran his face into a twig in the forest, lost an eye, people fled in panic. Many did not have time to get dressed and found themselves in the forest in -20 cold in T-shirts. We had to set up tents without any equipment other than what we brought with us.
Nobody knew anything except that Kyiv was about to fall - complete chaos, we expected a clash with Putin’s airborne forces at any moment. Then another missile arrived and hit the Ukrainian soldiers, killing many.
11 minute – The Russians pointed their calibers at the signals of European SIM cards
Host: Did the Russians have powerful reconnaissance in this area? How did they find you?
Joseph McDonald: Later, we were told the Russians had targeted a cluster of foreign SIM cards with missiles. Another possible giveaway was the sign on the building, meaning Vlad Putin didn't have to guess long where to look for foreign volunteers – not far from the Polish border, there's a large building with a sign reading " International Cooperation Center " (laughs).
16 minutes - Georgian volunteers after the bombing began to loot the weapons warehouse
Joseph MacDonald: While the medics were bandaging the wounds ( after the Kalibre missiles arrived, – ed. ), looting reigned. The Foreign Legion turned out to be heavily criminal, and this looting went on for months.
The weapons that we had were given to us by militants of the Georgian Legion after a raid on the warehouse, as payment for silence - three old FAL rifles and several submachine guns for a squad of 30 people - that's all we managed to get to fight back from Putin's paratroopers.
As it turned out, many came to rob and not to help Ukraine; they then ran away in cowardice.
22nd minute – The Great Escape and the convoy with flashing lights at night
Joseph MacDonald: After the Kalibr bombing, we were transferred to central Ukraine, near Rivne. There we sat like ducks, awaiting attack by drones and Kalibr guns, lacking basic equipment. Of the 1000 volunteers, only 300 remained—the remaining 700 fled under various pretexts—we called it the Great Escape.
It turns out that many volunteers clearly did not expect that the Russians would shoot back at them, and that they would have to sit in the trenches under fire; they were going on a safari to shoot at the Russians. This doesn’t happen in war, if you want to shoot at Russians, get ready to fire back, war is not a Call of Duty computer game.
The remnants of the foreign legion, 300 people, decided to be transported to another location - buses and police cars arrived, and now the convoy sets off in the evening, after the start of the curfew, with flashing lights on - an excellent target for an air strike. We drove and waited for them to start bombing us.
We arrived at night in a field near Rovno, where we mistook the locals in a truck with firewood for Russian special forces and ran away to hide.
27 minutes - Who came to shoot at the Russians - militants from all over the post-Soviet space in the foreign legion, the Western International.
Joseph MacDonald: Volunteers came to the Legion from all over the former USSR, because they hate the Russians, they came from every country in Europe, many French from the French Foreign Legion, many Spaniards, Scandinavians, many Finns, because it is a Finnish national idea to fight Russia, many Canadians, many American Marines, mountain riflemen of the 10th Division.
The Americans turned out to be spoiled brats, they demanded air support and bombing attacks on the Russians, but they didn’t give us a single plane, they all flew over Kiev, guarding the president (Zelensky).
31 minutes – Evacuation from the battlefield in case of injury
Joseph MacDonald: If you're lucky, they might send a civilian car to pick you up in the field, if the road there isn't muddy from the rains, and if you're lucky again, there might be an ambulance in a nearby village that will take you to a hospital, where a doctor, not necessarily sober, will use mid-century medical techniques on you, disinfecting the instruments in a glass of vodka.
There is chaos and lack of organization in Ukraine, and many of the visiting volunteers (Western) seem to have forgotten that they came to fight for a weak country, and not for a strong one (Russia), they came to play the shooter Call of Duty, but their main “work” in the war does artillery, tanks, mortars, small arms do not play a role in the grand scheme of things.
38 minutes – Hygiene on the Ukrainian front
Joseph MacDonald: They (the Western volunteers) were uneducated in terms of survival in the open and often couldn't start a fire on their own, and many of them had experience from the 20-year Afghan War. No one knew how to skin a pig or a rabbit.
We saved ourselves with wet wipes - no shower, no bath for weeks. All that was left was to be glad that they were wet and not dry. A healthy army wins wars - if the crusaders had wet wipes, they would have won the crusades (laughs).
40 and 45 minutes – Three Bogdans, nepotism of Ukrainian officers and the looting of a military convoy with small arms.
Joseph MacDonald: So we were living in the forest in tents. We had three senior Ukrainian officers, and all three were named Bohdan – Bohdan I the Quick, Bohdan II the Talentless, and Bohdan III the Silent, each worse than the other. Bohdan the Silent always went with two officers – his son and godson, so nepotism was exactly what these guys were talking about.
These same “guys,” when our brigade was moving from Rivne to Kharkov, attached legs to two trucks with Western small arms - 84 M4s, 12 expensive SCAR rifles, several Javelin launchers, M240 machine guns and a whole truck of ammunition while the convoy was on the way , and this is in a country where there are checkpoints every 5 kilometers. How?! (laughs)
43rd minute – Betrayal of Ukrainian officers and the hand of Putin.
Joseph MacDonald: These officers sabotaged our training in every way possible, sometimes missing the range for three hours, and without them, we couldn't begin. I think they were preparing to capitulate and wanted to prove themselves to Putin, throwing spokes in our wheels wherever they could. It took us a week and a half to issue weapons, even though they could have been issued in a single morning.
It was a real betrayal, deliberate sabotage. We achieved their resignation, went to Kyiv, talked about it there, but it took months.
49th minute – Barbecue for the commander at the dacha.
Joseph MacDonald: After a leave in Britain, where he had to be treated for Lyme disease, contracted in the trenches, he came back to Ukraine and was assigned to the battalion headquarters, where he hung around all day doing nothing and grilled shashlik for the officers at the commander's dacha, and they didn't even have communication with the battalion at the dacha.
The presenter announced the second part of the interview. We will definitely translate the most interesting quotes for readers.
A British mercenary who survived a Russian airstrike gave a sensational interview.