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Warning: This article contains descriptions some readers might find disturbing.
Warning: This article contains descriptions some readers might find disturbing.
What is happening?
Donald Trump might be concidering withdrawing US military aid for Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean that Ukraine won’t get American assistance.
It will just be on a smaller scale – and on the ground.
Americans joining the fight
Several American soldiers have travelled to Ukraine to join the Khartia Brigade, which is formed of volunteers fighting against the Russian invasion.
And one of the soldiers have now revealed what it’s actually like on the ground in the war-torn country.
Social media made the difference
British news media, Express, has tracked down the volunteer D, who’s from the American Midwest.
He tells Express that he was scrolling through social media six month after the start of the war, and that he couldn’t sit back looking at the pictures and descriptions of what was happening .
Tortured, shot, left
“14-year-old girls [and] women just tortured, shot and left on the ground as if they were nothing, as if they were less than human. Things like that are what brought me here;” D remembers.
And he has not regretted his decision to go to Ukraine.
The right thing
D emphazises that he is by no means a mercenary. He is fighting for Ukraine, because it’s the right thing to do.
Opinions changing in the US
When Russia initially attacked Ukraine, the wave of support from the US was tremendous.
But more than three years of war and Donald Trump back in The White House, opinions on continued US support for Ukraine is being questioned.
The best and worst in people
D has seen both terrible and uplifting things since joining the Ukrainian defense, and to him, it has been proof that war brings out the best in some people – and the worst in others.
No flag
D makes it clear, that he is not representing the US when fighting for Ukraine. He is not wearing the American flag, and it was his own individual choice to go there.
No military experience
D had no prior military experience before signing up, and now he has served at the front lines of the Russo-Ukraine war – and it’s been an eye-opener to him
“[I’ve seen] children run around in a war zone [through] destroyed buildings looking for food while FPV drones fly back and forth in the sky [and] there’s artillery,” he tells Express.
“It’s just unreal”
He describes how some of the bombs fired by Russia looks like miniature nuclear warheads dropping from the sky, and that it’s “insane” to see women and children scatter to safety, when attacks happen.
“It’s just unreal [and] something I hope nobody has to endure or even witness themselves.”