Inside Ukraine’s Foreign Legion | Colin Freeman

We speak with journalist Colin Freeman about covering wars from Iraq and Somalia to Ukraine, including his own kidnapping by Somali pirates and the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. We also dig into his book The Mad and the Brave, the foreign volunteers who joined Ukraine’s International Legion, and the chaos, courage, and darker realities they faced on the front lines. Colin's book: https://a.co/d/0j8oksfv Today's Sponsors: GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! Mars Men⬇️ For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://mengotomars.com/ Quince⬇️ go to: https://www.quince.com/house for free shipping and 365 day returns For ad free video and audio and access to live streams... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ GRAB JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured Jack Murphy's book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 — Start 01:26 — Colin Freeman’s Path Into Journalism 05:28 — Going Freelance to Cover Iraq 08:09 — The Reality of Freelance War Reporting 11:26 — Kidnapped by Pirates in Somalia 17:46 — Covering the Opening Days of the Ukraine War 21:21 — Taking the Train Into Besieged Kyiv 24:14 — Meeting Ukraine’s Foreign Volunteers 32:04 — Fantasists, Screamers, and the Yavoriv Missile Strike 36:36 — Douglas Carter and the Chaos of the Front Line 42:04 — Hugh Lee and the Shock of Ukraine’s Battlefield 49:08 — Pez and the Hunt for a Front Line 55:19 — Pez’s Near Capture on a Dnipro Island 59:30 — Foreign Volunteers Captured by Russia 01:05:22 — Torture in a Russian Black Site 01:14:05 — Mariupol, Azovstal, and John Harding 01:25:45 — The Bizarre POW Release and Roman Abramovich 01:31:40 — Ryan O’Leary, Chosen Company, and Jack Knight 01:37:15 — The Dark Side of the Legion 01:48:47 — Did Ukraine’s Foreign Legion Actually Matter? 01:52:50 — Could the West Have Built a Better Legion? 01:58:40 — The Mad and the Brave and Closing Thoughts #ukrainewar #ukraineforeignlegion Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:00Jack Murphy?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy, here with tonight's guest, journalist Colin Freeman. He is the author of The Mad and the Brave, which is a book about the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. That is, the foreigners from, I mean, he'll tell us, but 50-some-odd countries that came to Ukraine to help defend the country from Putin's invasion, the Russian invasion, mostly, you know, starting on the 2022 full-scale invasion that began going forward, is kind of the context of the book. Colin's also had an interesting career in his own right as a journalist, covering various combat zones. So, thank you,

• 1:43Jack Murphy?

  Colin, for joining us, and thanks for reaching out.

• 1:46Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me on the podcast.

• 1:48Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I just read the book, the PDF that you sent me. I'm gonna, I need to order a hard copy for my library. I want to have it in my collection. I just finished reading it before we started this interview, and it was very, very good. Like I was telling you before the show, I wish I had written it because it was that good.

• 2:09Jack Murphy?

  So Colin, let's start off a little bit with your kind of origin story. How did you grow up? Where did you grow up? And how did that sort of take you towards journalism?

• 2:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I grew up in Edinburgh in Scotland. And I think when I was young, I didn't have any interest in anything particular. Didn't want to be a banker, didn't want to be a lawyer, that kind of thing. Couldn't really work out what I wanted to do. And I realized that journalism was quite a good profession for people who aren't interested in anything in particular, because every day is essentially different. Certainly, that's the case if you're working on a general, you know, current affairs newspaper. So after I left school and went to university, I think by the end of uni, I decided that I would, I would try and become a journalist.

• 3:03Speaker 04

  I didn't do much at university in terms of journalism. I then got a job on a local paper in Grimsby, which is a town in the north of England, doing very kind of typical local paper stories, court stories, stories about animals, stuck up trees, village, village shows, all that sort of stuff. You know, the kind of, but it, but it's a sort of microcosm of the world around us. And while it sometimes feels boring at the time, you do get to sort of see every side of human life, from the, you know, life in the courts and the kind of darker underbelly of, of, of a place to the way the government works at local level, who the movers and shakers

• 3:48Speaker 04

  are, and of course, all the human interest stories in between. It's more the, the, some of the stories rather than the, the individual stories themselves. It's a great chance really to just sort of see life up front in, in all its different shades. Then I moved down to London, to cut a long story short, worked on a tabloid news agency, chasing celebrities around. I've been, I've been told to get lost by all manner of famous British celebrities. Some B-list ones as well, like the the the Oasis, the Spice Girls, all these people, I think at one point or another said, no comment, please go away to me. Um, uh, probably did some American ones as well, but I didn't get very far.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  Um, and then, um, that that was a kind of stepping stone, uh, that tabloid stuff to Fleet Street or, you know, which is which is where our national newspapers, uh, the shorthand for our national newspapers. And it it toughens you up a bit, um, gets you used to, you know, gives you a bit of a thick skin. Um, then I worked on the London Evening Standard, which is kind of like the equivalent of the New York Post, I suppose. It's, um, London's main, you know, newspaper, but it sort of sees itself as a national paper. I was there for about four years, but I only got so far up the chain, really. Um, I wasn't one of their, you know, their brightest rising stars.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  And if that's the case, in a competitive newsroom environment, uh, you tend to realise that, you know, you you're never gonna, you know, do that well. And when the really big stories happen, such as the Iraq war, when it was looming, um, you realise you're not gonna be part of the team that's gonna get sent. And I think it was, uh, the Iraq war started in March of two thousand and three, if I remember correctly. And, uh, many, as many of you, your listeners will remember, there was quite a kind of big roll up to the war, run up to the war. It was pretty clear it was gonna happen. Um, uh, you know, you had troop deployments to the Gulf and so on months in advance. And, uh, I think at Christmas of two thousand and two, about three months before the war started,

• 5:55Speaker 04

  I was on another celebrity doorstep, um, uh, and, um, uh, sitting outside some celebrity's house, waiting for them to comment on some story, not even sure if they were there or not. I was whinging to the photographer I was with about how the team for the, to cover the Iraq war for the standard had already been, uh, picked and I wasn't gonna be on it, not to any, my great surprise. And he said, well, look, you know, rather than just sort of sitting there bitching, why don't you go and cover the war as a freelancer? And I sort of thought, can you do that? And, um, it it it seemed a crazy. Idea, but it sort of lit a lightbulb in my head. And I thought, well, you know, I'll go and try and do it. And if nothing else, it will be like a kind of a gap year or a backpacking adventure with with a bit of a difference.

• 6:39Speaker 04

  Maybe with a bit more purpose. Um, so off I went to Iraq. Uh, it seemed like a great idea to me. Um, some of the other people that I ran it past thought, no, that's that's absolute bloody madness. Um, you know, you don't speak Arabic, uh, you you don't have any contacts out in Iraq. You don't have any hostile environment, training, no combat experience, anything like that. Um, you've got no work lined up and and actually you don't even know where Iraq is, which was true. I had to look where it was on the map. Um, but anyway, I went out there. I I pitched up actually on the day the war, formal combat hostilities actually ended on, I think, May the first of two thousand and three. Uh, I E. The very last day of the active war, which is not a great spur to have in your cap.

• 7:24Speaker 04

  Feather to have in your cap as a war correspondent. But, um, it turned out to be a good time because, uh, as we know, the, you know, the actual invasion of top of Saddam Hussein went like clockwork. It was the, um, it was the occupation afterwards, uh, that was the bit that, uh, you know, proved, um, that did not go to plan. And that was where the news was really. So I was out there for a couple of years and that was kind of where I sort of learned my trade as a foreign correspondent. From then, um, I, uh, I became, got a job on the Daily Telegraph back in London on their foreign desk. Uh, as chief foreign correspondent and spent about the next ten, twelve years covering, um, uh, you know, di- different.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  Different big stories around the world, uh, principally the Arab Spring, the Somali piracy crisis. And of course, the rest of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. So that was kind of me. I then went freelance in two thousand and sixteen, still doing the same sort of stuff, really, essentially. Uh, and then when the war in Ukraine started, The Telegraph asked me back as an extra pair of hands to go and cover that. And so I was, uh, I've been covering that on off for the last four years. I was in Kiev when the, uh, what was it? I was in Ukraine at the start of the war, ended up in Kiev for most of the first month. Um, and that's where I ended up getting the, the idea for the book about the, uh, the international volunteers. That's

• 8:52Speaker 04

  me in a, in a nutshell, rather large nutshell.

• 8:55Jack Murphy?

  Just to point out to the listeners, um, kind of the life of a freelance reporter. I mean, you really are just packing sort of like a laptop and a camera and a change of clothes and going over there on your own. There's no security blanket, there's no nothing, and you have to pitch editors and hopefully sell a story, right?

• 9:13Speaker 04

  That, that, that, that is exactly it, yes. And certainly when I first went to Iraq, I didn't find that many editors that keen. Um, initially I thought that was just because they had their own people there. It turned out most of them didn't. The, most of their staff correspondents had pulled out by then, but a lot of them were just reluctant to use you because they were worried that if something went wrong, as it could easily do, they would be, you know, morally, if not legally, um, liable for you. And, and that's not a position that, um, a lot of media organizations want to find themselves in. Nobody wants to be, uh, waking up, what, no, no executive wants to be waking up to find some freelancer that they, you know, gave some vague kind of commission to, uh,

• 9:57Speaker 04

  via email, suddenly staring out from a hostage video. That's, uh, that has happened in the past. And, uh, so that's the perennial problem for freelancers these days is, uh, it is finding, you know, news organizations that are, that are willing to, um, to trust them in war zones. Although, you know, it's, it's not surprising because it, it does come down to a duty of care sometimes.

• 10:17Jack Murphy?

  I remember a time, cause I was going back and forth to Syria and Iraq during the ISIS war. And it was like 2014 or 2015. It was, I think, it was one of the big ones. It was like Reuters or AP or someone. They would take copy from freelancers, but not photographs. It's very weird policy that they, they would not accept photo journalism, but if you went and wrote a story and submitted it, they would, you know, consider it.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it it they they different places have different rules. Some places will not take anything from anybody.

• 10:52Jack Murphy?

  Yes.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  Because they don't want to be seen to be encouraging people. Other places will say, well, look, we can't commission you to go. But when you get back, when you're back in your sort of safe and sound and assuming you're still alive, we can have a chat then, which is slightly having your cake and eating it a little bit. So, you know, it's it's quite a difficult one. But when I was working on the Telegraph foreign desk, we did occasionally get people who were freelancers ringing up, saying they were off to, you know, about to deploy themselves to somewhere dicey. And we would often try and dissuade them.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  I've generally found the best way of dissuading them was to sort of say, do you, you know, do your parents know you're going? And they'd be like, well, what's that got to do with that? And I'd say, well, it's your parents whose numbers we'll need in case you get kidnapped. And we also need things like your blood group and, you know, other information like that. And how will they respond if they were on the phone telling them that you've, you know, you've not been heard of for a week and that your face has just appeared in a hostage video? I don't think I've had to lay it on quite as thick as that. But when you mention things like that, that sometimes drives the point home to people in a way that they perhaps haven't sort of quite thought about it in the past. Yeah, I myself

• 12:17Speaker 04

  was actually kidnapped in Somalia back in 2008 while working for the Telegraph.

• 12:22Jack Murphy?

  Can you tell us about that?

• 12:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure. I mean, that's why I, you know, this, this is a sort of a subject of particular interest to me. I was covering the Somali piracy crisis at the time.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  Uh, which again, as many of your listeners will remember was when Somali pirates were sailing out into the Gulf of Aden, hijacking ships and taking the crews hostage. Um, so, um, yeah, we, the foreigner said to me at the time, can you go to Somalia to do a bit of reporting on the ground? Um, just to get an idea of what the, you know, what the local people think about the piracy, um. And so off we went, we went to a town called Basasa, which is in the northern region of Somalia called Pontland. Uh, which is where most of the piracy was taking place because, um, uh, it's close to the Gulf of Aden. So it's, it's like being,

• 13:18Speaker 04

  uh, the, being a spot on the inter, on the interstate highway. Um, where you can just sail out into the sea and you've got, you know, hundreds of passing ships every day. Um, uh, as, as most journalists do when they go there and indeed most business people and aid workers, we, we use bodyguards that were hired by our fixers, local hires, just, you know, guys with, you know, uh, guys who were the, probably the fixer's cousins or relatives or relatives, cousins, friends, whatever. Uh, with guns, guys with guns, about seven of them. And it's basically a kind of scarecrow effect. You're not expecting these people to lay their lives down for you, but, you do have to hope that the fixers hires ones who are trustworthy.

• 14:01Speaker 04

  In our case, uh, they were not trustworthy. Um, and on the last day, as we were driving to the airport, our, um, our bodyguards, guys we were paying several hundred bucks to keep us safe every day, uh, kidnapped us themselves. Um, and drove us off into the mountains. Um, I won't, I won't go into the full details about it. There is a book I wrote about it. Um, if anyone wants to check it out, um, which tells the story in, uh, in exhaustive detail, but, um, basically we were held in a series of caves in the mountains of northern Somalia for about six weeks. Um, uh, we weren't, we weren't hurt badly or anything like that. We were threatened a few times and there was a few other,

• 14:42Speaker 04

  thrills and spills, a gunfight in the cave at one point with a rival clan, which is not a great place to have a gunfight. Uh, you know, with all those, all those stone walls, lots of bullets zigzag, ricocheting around.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Uh but eventually we were released. Um I can't go the the the circumstances are released too much, but um money was asked for. Whether money changed towns, I don't really know. And that is quite frequent in that part of the world. Um we were also threatened at one point that um uh when the negotiations were not going very well, the pirates uh happened to mention that a British naval vessel um had killed a couple of pirates in a clan a few hundred miles down the road just the week before. Um and they said um those uh the clan, the that uh the the clan to which those dead pirates belong, um they're rather

• 15:39Speaker 04

  cross about that and they've heard uh that we've got you, a British journalist hostage up here, and they've put in a counter offer for you. Um so if your newspaper doesn't pay up, they'd be very uh keen to buy you just to sort of have a little word about those pirates that your navy killed. And I remember thinking, Jesus Christ, you know, it's the first time the Royal Navy has killed anyone in about three hundred years, and it happens to be the same bloody week that I'm stuck with a bunch of pirates in Somalia. Um so yeah, it was it was it was it was not a pleasant experience, but um it was it was manageable and um it it has sort of taught me, you know, the the sort

• 16:21Speaker 04

  of that that it's fairly important to be careful when you get deployed abroad, although realistically, these days kidnapping is a is a threat that can, you know, lot lots of journalists I know have have had have had it happen to them, including quite a few in Iraq, where the consequences could be a lot more serious, you know, where you had religious kidnappings that led to beheadings and so on.

• 16:43Jack Murphy?

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• 21:06Jack Murphy?

  I was gonna say, like, one of the things I've been told about the kidnappings in Somalia is that they're not gonna hurt you. Like, that's not what it's about. It's all about a value transaction that they want to take place.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  That is generally the case, yeah, and they actually, I think it's almost fair to say that they specialize in being, they try to be fairly honest brokers in that sense, because, um, and to honor deals, because, uh, you know, there is a sense among a lot of, you know, a lot of Western firms, if they get somebody kidnapped in Somalia, they would sort of assume that the, the people doing the kidnapping would be bad faith actors and that, uh, offering them ransom money would simply be chucking, uh, good money after bad and making a bad situation worse and that there'd be no reason that the, these people in this lawless part of the world would honor their deal. Uh, in actual fact, I think they do have a reputation for once a deal is struck,

• 22:02Speaker 04

  um, it usually goes through, you know, and, and as you say, there's, there's, there's not much, uh, relative to the numbers of people who've been taken by pirates. There's not been many cases where those people have not come home alive, uh, as long as money has been forthcoming. Uh, whereas in Iraq or Syria, you know, you, you saw the majority of those, many of those cases would end up with somebody being beheaded. Um, and there was a school of thought that says that these were not really kidnappings at all. They were more what you, what, what someone, I don't know, what's readings, described as deferred homicides.

• 22:36Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  You, you, you, you catch somebody, you intend to kill them, but you make out like it's gonna be, you want some political, uh, concession, which you know, uh, you know, is never gonna be offered. For example, US troops being pulled out of, um, uh, Iraq was, was a common one during that time, yeah.

• 22:56Jack Murphy?

  And then how did you, um, get interested or, or get sent to cover the war in Ukraine? How did that first come about?

• 23:05Speaker 04

  Um, so, yeah, I was a jobbing freelancer for The Telegraph, uh, you know, mainly for the foreign desk, whenever they needed an extra pair of hands on something, I was there. Um, and the Ukraine war was obviously one of those cases. Um, if you cast your mind back, you remember that, uh, the, the war, you know, there, there was quite a lot of pre-indicators that the war was gonna happen. Putin, um, doing these enormous troop buildups throughout the new year of 2022.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Um, and it became fairly obvious that he was gonna make some key decision about it around the last week of uh the last week of February of twenty twenty twen- that twenty twenty two. Um, we all ha- the Telegraph already had a couple of um people in Kiev and one uh one team in Kiev and one team in the east of Ukraine. Uh, they're in anticipation that the invasion would start. Um, and initially they said to me, can you go to Lviv? Um, in the west of Ukraine, just to be there as an extra pair of hands if, you know, like if if much happens or whatever. But we don't really think it will, you know, uh we don't think Putin's that daft.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  So neither did I, of course, so I I flew in on what I think was the the very last flight from Lviv. On um uh February the twenty third of twenty twenty two, the war, of course, started on the twenty fourth. Uh, got to the hotel, um had a couple of beers, went to bed thinking, yeah, it's gonna be a couple of weeks watching, covering what we call the diplomatic climb down story um in the media where it's like, you know, there's been a big buildup, lots of saber rattling and then Putin decides not to do much in the end, maybe send a few more tanks into bits of the Donbass that he already occupied or something like that. Then a few hours later, I'm sort of woken up by flurries of WhatsApp messages from colleagues in Kiev and elsewhere

• 24:54Speaker 04

  saying, the war has started, you know, all hell is breaking loose. And um yeah, so that was that. And so um the the first week was was, you know, was was a bit frightening because um I had never, I'd covered wars in Africa and the Middle East a bit before, but you know, th- this was kind of like grown up warfare. This is, you know, uh uh uh the the world's second superpower. And also it's Vladimir Putin, it's it's not one of the nice guys. And you know, nobody really had any idea of what what kind of things he was capable of. Um, as we now know, you know, he's he's barely capable of invading the Donbass, let alone Kiev or anywhere else, but at that time, you were s- you you you know, you were expecting Russian paratroopers to land in Lviv at any moment.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  You were, I was worried the border might be sealed. I was thinking like, you know, if if if all hell breaks loose, can I walk from Lviv back to Poland? It's only seventy miles or something. Um, so yeah, it was it was it was quite, so that that first week was uh was quite scary. It was it was difficulty sleeping and so on. And also you're very adrenalized just from having to, you know, do the job as well, the daily reporting. Um. Then on about day five, I had, I was, you know, I was tasked with replacing the team in Kiev that we had, who'd already been there for a month. They'd both had Covid and, you know, they they weren't feeling match fit for what could be, you know, an unending siege potentially. So I was kind of thinking, well, how on earth do I get into Kiev? All the cars are driving the other way.

• 26:25Speaker 04

  The hire car shut place in in Lviv has has been shut, you know, and nobody in their right mind is driving down that motorway. Um. And I was kind of despairing. And then somebody said, well, why don't you take the train? I said, well, what do you mean the train? Thinking like all the trains would have, you know, stopped ages ago. They pointed out that the trains were every day there were disgorging, you know, large numbers of refugees at the uh at the border with Poland. And obviously those trains came back empty. And so you could just jump on one of them. And it was was one of the strangest train journeys I've ever done, you know, it's just almost a completely empty train, me and one or one or two other, a few other Ukrainians, and I think an Italian photographer

• 27:07Speaker 04

  who was told by the steward not to take to take his feet off the seat. Um. So they're still maintaining standards, the Ukrainian train service. As we got into Kiev and then covered the, you know, the siege of Kiev for the next uh the next five weeks or so by which time it was already showing signs of of petering out.

• 27:28Jack Murphy?

  This is when they were trying to capture the airfield and there were assassination attempts on, yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  Yes, um, the the major, I mean, there was a lot of fear of Russian saboteurs wandering the streets in the first few days. Um. And the Ukrainian troops, although pretty professional, most of the time were quite jumpy. Um. Those saboteurs either were rounded up or proved to be nothing more than the rumor after about a week. Uh. Although you also had the Russians pushing into Erpin and Butcher in the northwest, that was the main focus of their assault. Also, um, an area called Brovory in the east. So the combat itself was limited to certain areas, but I mean, um, Kiev. That point certainly felt very much like a, you know, a city under under siege. You had, you know, missiles coming in quite regularly in the mornings.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  Um, and also just the streets were com- almost completely deserted at that time. Um, far, far quieter than they are now. And, you know, there was just signs of the of of things kind of fraying at the edges. Um, lots of spots on street corners where or streets where cars had crashed just because people were were driving in a panic. Um, uh, quite a lot of mentally unstable people out on the streets who. Uh, I think primarily people who'd um, who's medic- who who are on medication of one sort or another. Or otherwise unable to care for themselves, who'd been left basically to fend for themselves and who, you know, running out of appropriate medication.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, just quite a few signs that the, you know, the sort of the place was buckling, but um. Uh, as as as time went on, you know, things sort of, you know, got back together, back back to normal again and. You know, shops were open, cafes were open, and we saw Ukrainians rallying round in the way that, you know, he's he's he's. He's now, uh, you know, they're now very famous for around the world. When was the first time you came in contact with a foreigner that was fighting over there? Well, um, Zelensky announced the creation of the international legion on about day three of the war. From his bunker in the centre of Kiev, uh, a time when, you know, it all looked rather rather grim for Kiev and everybody was expecting that.

• 29:45Speaker 04

  Uh, you know, if if if the regime, if if the Zelensky's government didn't collapse within seventy two hours. In three days, it would be, you know, within three weeks or three months or whatever. Um, and he he framed it very much as an appeal to the wider world. He said, look, uh, anyone who, uh. Anyone out out there who's got military skills, um, and wants to come and fight for Ukraine, I'm fight, I'm forming. An international legion, it will be for those who want to, uh, fight for democracy. Freedom, human rights, not just for Ukraine, but for Europe and for the whole of the world. It's a very, you know, romantic appeal, really. And, you know, echoing the spirit of the international brigade

• 30:30Speaker 04

  in Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the nineteen thirties, when volunteers around the world flocked to fight to help the republican government, the democratically elected left-wing republican government in Spain fight off Franco's fascists. And, you know, has since been regarded very much as a, you know, a dry run for World War Two. And, yeah, so that's what he said. And within, I think, a couple of weeks, you know, the Ukrainian government said they'd done something like twenty thousand email, sorry, twenty thousand applications to join the new international legion.

• 31:13Speaker 04

  I think the majority, by what they meant, was twenty thousand emailed expresses of interest. But it was still a significant number. I think the first ones I met, I didn't actually meet them physically because a lot of them wanted to keep themselves fairly low profile because they were worried about getting trapped by the Russians. And sometimes didn't want people to know at home that they were there because not all of them had actually told their families that they were going, you know. Um, I spoke to a few on the phone. A lot of them were ex-British soldiers, mainly people who were younger actually. And I think quite a lot who had missed out on Iraq or Afghanistan and who saw this as a chance to put their skills to the test.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  And in that sense, soldiering is a pretty unique profession because you can spend your life training in soldiering and never get your skills, you know, the chance to put your skills to the test. It's like being a surgeon who never operates, a foreign correspondent who never goes to, you know, covers a war, that sort of thing, you know. So there was a strong, there was a strong element of that. People wanted to see what their skills were up to it. There were also more seasoned, you know, combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Who wanted to see what it was like to fight a peer army, you know, um, where, you know, it would be the Russians this time. Rather than coalition forces that held all the aces. Um, so there was that element. And then there was also just um. Quite a lot of people who had never fought before, or if they did have military experience, you know, what was limited to, you know. Driving trucks in in in logistics squad rooms and things like that. Um, uh, who, you know, who again wanted, you know, wanted to see what combat was like. And I think it was be fair to say for for most of them, if not all of them, that was also just drawn by the cause. Uh, you know, this was a um.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  Pretty unique war in the, uh, you know, for the first time since World War Two, really. It felt like a just war, um, with a clear baddie and a clear goodie in Zelensky. Um, uh, and with with with echoes of uh, the land grab that hit the maid. Uh, that started World War Two when he invaded Poland and the Czech Republic. A lot of people saying like, you know, um, I don't really wanna come and fight particularly, but I feel it's my duty. As a soldier and some with someone with with the the relevant military skills, I'm gonna feel shit. If I stay at home in London or um, uh, or or New York or anywhere. Um, while there are Ukrainians out there fighting and dying.

• 33:58Speaker 04

  Um, partly because we know that this may not, this may only be, this may be the start of a bigger operation. Um, against uh, other parts of Europe. And also it's i- if he succeeds, if he's not opposed, it will be the end of the, you know, the the the rules based order as we know it. And as a as a military equipped individual, um, I feel it's my job to go out there. Um, so those were the kind of motivations that were involved, although for a lot of them, uh, you know. There there were other factors, personal factors as well. Um, a lot of them had, you know, like civilian lives, uh, that they weren't particularly enjoying. Jobs that they found unfulfilling, personal lives that's, you know.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Um marriages that were sometimes on the rocks. A few people, you know, were on the run from the law. Uh or had been in trouble with the law in the past and wanted to kind of wipe the slate clean. Um which is something you also notice with, you know, people who went out to fight for ISIS as jihadists. That's the thing, you know, the the sense of I've I've not led a a decent life. Or I've led a bad life. This is the chance for me to to kind of try and um uh you know, rectify that a bit. So you you have a wide range, a very colourful range of of people, science, uh joining up. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to write the book, really. It's it's partly an account of the combat that they faced and their their experiences on the frontline. That is obviously primarily what it is.

• 35:27Speaker 04

  It it also tries to be a narrative of the first three years of the war. So you get that as a kind of thrown in for free, as it were, if you read the book. But it's also um trying to describe what the, you know, why why these people go out there. And and what it is about life in their home countries, in America or or the UK, that they feel is lacking. Um uh you know, in their own, you know, uh and that that for quite a few of them, I think. That there's what I would call the the sort of Fight Club um uh element to it, as in as in the film, the book. Um starring Brad Pitt, uh where you you have a generation of men. Brought up these days in in the United States or and certainly in Britain.

• 36:11Speaker 04

  Where they've known, you know, the countries have known peace really for largely more or less for eighty years. And they don't really feel like there's, you know, many existential challenges left in life. Um that life is too too mollycoddled, too soft. And they wanna know whether they can face up to the kind of hardships that their their their forefathers faced in World War Two or World War One. Uh you know, they've seen it in um in a programmes like uh um uh, oh, what's it called? The um, I'm sorry, my my memory's, Band of Brothers, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, they they they, you know, they they've they've got relatives who, you know, fought in that war in World War Two. Or they or they might have, in in America's case, they might have relatives who fought in Vietnam.

• 36:56Speaker 04

  Um and and it's that sense of what's it like to fight in a real, a proper grown up war? Can I handle it? Here's a chance.

• 37:05Jack Murphy?

  There was a very motley crew that showed up for this international legion, especially it sounds like early on in the war. And you have a chapter, you talk about the screamers. I think you guys call them waltz. You know, people were pretending to be someone they're not. And then there's this ballistic missile strike that kind of separated the wheat from the shaft, it sounded like.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. So when the legionnaires first came across the border, a lot of them were told to deploy, or sorry, to go to a base at a place called Yaverev, near the Polish border. It's actually a base that was used prior to the war by, as a kind of NATO training base. And, you know, so there's, I think there was probably about a couple of thousand of them pitched up there at the beginning of the war, all sort of sitting there waiting, you know, for orders, waiting to get trained up. And yes, as you say, some of them were, you know, fairly competent volunteers with proven military records. And some of them were not.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  You had quite a lot of Walter Mities, i.e. fantasists. You had quite a lot who, so-called screamers, i.e. people who had no military training at all, but who bullshitted a lot, that they had, you know, previous records as, you know, Navy SEALs or Delta Force or SAS. And then who would go off, run off screaming at the moment the action started.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  And, yeah, I mean, according to some of the volunteers I spoke to for the book, you could kind of see these fantasists a mile off. You know, that they all wore kind of berets and cap badges that had, you know, insignias that, you know, nobody actually seen before. And they would often talk about, you know, various missions they'd been on, you know, inevitably with the CIA or Delta Force. Well, it's a bit like, can't really talk about it too much, but it was, you know, it was real hush hush stuff, but, you know. And you sort of think, well, uh, if it was that hush hush, why, why is it not classified? Uh, you know, why are you even mentioning it, you know? Um, so there, there was, there were, there were, there was quite a lot of those sorts of people.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  And it was a big worry, um, for the more regular competent legionnaires to see these people having turned up. Because the Ukrainian military authorities didn't really have any means of vetting people at that particular point. Um, because, you know, if, if, if you've got, no- normally when you go to war, you're fighting alongside other guys you've been with for years and years, who you've trained alongside, you know their strengths, you know their weaknesses. Here, you're being lined up to fight along with a whole load of people who are total strangers anyway. Um, some of whom seem like complete whack jobs. Um, and then, uh, yeah, the other, the other problem with a lot of these people was that they had no sort of sense of, um,

• 39:58Speaker 04

  uh, you know, se- secure, secure comms at all, no, you know, no situational awareness. They'd be posting TikTok videos of them sort of saying, yo, hang in here at Yaverev, uh, or whatever. Um, and sending all kinds of, you know, messages to, you know, on, on the social media saying where they were. Um, and, uh, yeah, um, about, uh, uh, about, on about March the fourteenth, I think it was or something. One night at that particular base, the Russians hit it with a series of missiles, hypersonic missiles, big ones. Um, and, um, you know, they'd clearly identified this place as a, uh, as a haunt of international legionnaires.

• 40:40Speaker 04

  By some miracle, um, I think only one legionnaire of that was killed. Uh, and a large number of Ukrainians were killed in a, in a neighbouring barracks. Um, uh, but a- a- as a result of that, um, a lot of the, it was something of a wake up call. A lot of the legionnaires then decided, hmm, actually I don't really fancy this, I feel a bit out of my league. And it was widely presumed that the reason the Russians had managed to hit this place was because there was so much digital traffic on the internet that they, you know, they'd been able to easily pinpoint where it was, all the foreigners' mobile phones and so on. Personally, I think they could have probably worked it out anyway, just because it was a, it was an obvious place for all the foreigners to go to.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  But certainly, yes, as you say, that that kind of slightly sort of sifted the wheat from the chaff. A lot of people left deciding, you know, that this was not for them. But, but, you know, probably on balance, more of them stayed and, but that was certainly very much a kind of a baptism of fire for a lot of them.

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• 44:50Jack Murphy?

  You profile a lot of these foreign fighters that came over there. Some of them were professional soldiers, served in the paras. One guy was a Sandhurst graduate, as I recall.

• 45:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:04Jack Murphy?

  But then there's also another guy who grew up on a farm in Scotland and just wanted to get it on.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, that was Douglas Carter, who was, yeah, he had no military experience at all. I think he wanted to join the US Marine, wanted to join the Royal Marines or the Commandos when he was a kid, but he'd had a problem with his shoulder or something like that. Um during the the the qualification process. So that had kind of ruined his dream of joining the military. He became a tractor engineer instead. Had a perfectly happy life, but he always felt there was something missing. And um I think, you know, normally if you're a twenty something in the UK and you you want, you know, thrills and kicks, you uh.

• 45:51Speaker 04

  Uh you go off, maybe have a a gap year around the world, travel to Asia and and India and the Far East, that sort of thing. But if you've set your your heart on being a commander or a member of the SAS, it's not really gonna be much of a substitute. So uh yeah, when the war came along, he's just sort of thought, shall I do it, you know, why not? This is my, this is my one and only chance. And um off he went, yeah, um undeterred by the fact that uh, you know, he didn't have any military experience. Undeterred by the fact that the Ukrainian embassy had told him, no, mate, just just stay at home and, you know, do a bit of charity work. Back in the UK if you want, undeterred by the fact that his parents said to him, you know, you're bloody daft. Uh you know, you'll get killed.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Um and you, you know, in fairness to him, he he played it fairly fairly carefully. He he started out with a just a volunteer humanitarian unit, getting getting to know the the. That the ropes, getting to know the ground in Ukraine a bit. Then moved to a uh some sort of medical unit where they had a number of soldiers or or ex-soldiers who were doing. Sort of humanitarian medical work a bit close to the front lines. And then from there, eventually moved to a sort of medical unit that was a combat unit of some sort, if I remember rightly. And um uh yeah, eventually, you know, a few months in, found himself heading towards the front lines, uh you know.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  Ready for combat with a um with with a with a Ukrainian legion um that that took a large number of foreigners. And uh yeah, we sort of trying to describe what it's like for him when he when he sort of first heads into combat. He's with all these all these sort of other pals, many of whom are likewise rookies. And there's a sort of sense of like, you know, finally, we've got the chance to get here. We're we're sort of dreading it and yet we're longing for it at the same time. Um, then he gets to the um, to the to the the base or the trenches. Where, you know, where he's gonna be based and he's kind of expecting to get told, right, you go over there. You point your gun there and, you know, all that.

• 48:00Speaker 04

  And he's just left on his own in a trench, um, you know, not knowing what to do with this machine gun. Uh, PKM, which is like a big belt fed thing, a bit like a uh, general purpose machine gun that he's been trained on. Um, but he has no idea where the frontline is, you know, which direction it is. Um, and then, uh, out the blue, several soldiers start walking towards him. Uh, who's because of the light, uh, at that time of day, um, because he was in sort of in some woods. You couldn't see whether they were Russians or Ukrainians, but they were they were mon- wandering, you know, with their guns in a sort of. Put i- i- in a manner that, you know, didn't look terribly relaxed. Um, uh, loo- looked like they meant business.

• 48:43Speaker 04

  And so he starts thinking, right, are those my guys or are they the enemy? And as they get nearer and nearer, he sort of thinks, well, like, I'm gonna have to do something, you know, I'm gonna have to shoot. If these guys are Russian soldiers, because the moment they see me, uh, here in my trench, you know, they're gonna start shooting. So they get closer and closer, he's hoping they'll, you know, you'll be able to work out who they are. Eventually, he's on the point of firing a warning burst over their heads. Which I think would almost certainly have led to them firing back. When one of them waved at him and said, hi, yeah, how you doing? Um, in English or something. And, you know, he sort of like describes sort of wiping the sweat off off his brow and sort of.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  Un- uh, uh, pulling his hand off the trigger grip, which is kind of, you know, just about shaking by that time. And it turns out to be, um, the the guy who's gonna be commander, his new commander. Who had basically just almost wiped out that very first, you know, that very first day. Simply because nobody had told him which way, which direction the point is gunning. Um, I I'll mention that because it's sort of symptomatic of the kind of unexpected chaos you get on the Ukrainian front lines. I think people imagine that it's gonna be a nice straight line. It's not. It meanders in and out like a river. Um, and it changes within the hours and quite often people don't really know whether they're sort of, you know, the Russians are ahead of them or perhaps a little bit beside them or behind them or or whatever.

• 50:09Speaker 04

  Um, so, yeah, that that was, I think, something of a baptism of fire for him, definitely, yeah.

• 50:17Jack Murphy?

  A- another interesting person you profile in the book is a Vietnamese-American military veteran. Can you tell us about him? He had a very unique story.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, I think his name, uh, it's a while since I've reread the book, but I think his name was Hugh Lee. Um, and, um, yeah, he was a Vietnamese-American. His family had come over at the end of the Vietnam War, uh, to the US. Um, he, you know, was very much of the opinion that America had given his family a decent life. And that, uh, you know, when, uh, when, when other, when other parts of the world, uh, suffered, you know, uh, suffered military aggression, um, that, you know, he, he had a duty to, um, to help them uh, just as he'd been helped or his family had been helped. So at the time, he was running a restaurant in Columbia, of all places, having retired from the US Marines.

• 51:08Speaker 04

  Um, and he'd served in Afghanistan, um, as a, as a, as a command center sort of technical operator more than a frontline soldier, but, uh, you know, he'd still done US Marines training. He was a capable and competent operator. Um, but, you know, he wouldn't call himself any kind of, you know, um, Rambo infantry guy, kind of guy, you know, um, didn't sort of oversell his skills. Anyway, he, uh, he decided to go out. Uh, I think he was he, he was similar to a lot of the American, um, uh, soldiers out, uh, who volunteered for Ukraine in that uh, he had, he, having served in Afghanistan, he, he'd been quite disappointed by the pullout

• 51:49Speaker 04

  um, in twenty twenty-one of, of US forces from Afghanistan and by the collapse of the Afghan Army. And that had made him feel like, uh, you know, we spent twenty years there, all that blood and treasure invested. And yet, um, you know, when it came to it, the moment we pulled out, the Afghan army collapsed. And what was, what was the point of supporting these people? I know the story's more complicated than that, as does he, but that, that was the kind of, the, you know, the, the rough headline, or one of the things he felt. And he saw you, the Ukrainians, though, you know, actually fighting tooth and nail against the Russians. And he sort of thought, yeah, th- th- these people are worth fighting, th- these people are worth supporting. Cause they're fighting on their own accord, they're, they're not even, you know, asking us to come in, uh, officially, you know, um.

• 52:34Speaker 04

  And they're worth helping, uh, and they'll be a useful future ally for America in, in the future, um. Uh, so, yeah, off he went, um. Hugh did not have a good experience, um, he was at Yavruv when the missiles landed, but he didn't let that deter him. Um, however, he, he didn't, uh, he didn't have a very, uh, pleasant time with the, with the legionnaires when he first met them, um. He's described bumping into a bunch of guys who he, uh, uh, who, who he summed up as special forces washouts. Basically, sort of, um, very mu- muscly, Rambo gu- Rambo looking guys who he reckoned were sort of high on steroids or something, who were quite aggressive and dismissive of him.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  And again, you know, just that feeling of like, I don't wanna be stuck in a trench with these guys, um, I'll feel more scared of them than the Russians. Um, and then also on his, his very first deployment, he was sent to Erpin in the north, the northwest suburb of Kiev. Where the Russians were, were pushing in during that first month in Kiev. And his first, um, assignment was to, um, was to pick up, uh, a corpse from, uh, behind enemy lines. Um, a, a, a Georgian fighter, I see, and a fighter from the, from the, a volunteer from the, the ex Soviet state of Georgia. Um, who'd been killed, um, and him, Hugh and several other, about a dozen other guys went

• 54:01Speaker 04

  through, through the combat area to actually pick this. This guy's body up, the Georgian's body up, he was a big, heavy guy, fifteen stone maybe. And they they spent the next seven hours um stretching him back through the enemy lines, through, you know, mortar fire and and, you know, potential sniper areas and potential minefields uh back to, um, you know, back back to the real world lines, the Ukrainian lines. And I I don't think it was so much the, you know, the actual threat of, you know, the the the threat of armed danger. But the the actual weight of the corpse was was made it really, really hard. Um, they only had a kind of, um.

• 54:42Speaker 04

  They had a soft stretcher, one of those ones you wait that you can, you like, almost like a tarpaulin with handles. That you use primarily for getting people out of buildings, which uh which are more flexible, which but which make the actual task of carrying somebody far harder. And they said, you know, every every sort of hundred yards or so, he was getting getting exhausted. And they were also kept dropping the guy, um, uh, which didn't feel very respectful. And then by by the time he got back to the end, back to the Ukrainian lines, he was exhausted. He felt somewhat out of shape for what he was being tasked to do as well. Somewhat rattled by, you know, his experiences with these other legionnaires at the early on.

• 55:24Speaker 04

  And he just burst into tears and he just realised, I cannot cope with this. Um, and uh as as a result of that, he then went home. And I I mentioned that case in the book, I think, just partly to sort of show that not everybody emerges a hero out of these things, or not a hero in a conventional sense. Um, you you know, Hugh did still do his bit, he just decided it wasn't for him. Uh, but also just, I think, to sort of show to people that, you know, war wartime experiences, as with Douglas Cartler, you know, the guy who, you know, wasn't told which direction to fire his gun in, wartime experiences are never going to be what what you expect them. You know, he was expecting to be there in a trench firing a gun and instead he's humped a guy's body

• 56:08Speaker 04

  um for seven miles, you know, staring at a dead man in, you know, uh staring into a dead man's eyes the whole time, very much very closely confronted with the with the consequences of war. And yet not actually participating in it, not getting the the kind of adrenaline that you normally would. Which is quite an unusual, perhaps, introduction to, you know, a conflict zone. Um, and, um, you know, i- i- it just sort of struck me that, that, again, also underlined how different the war in Ukraine was to the one in Afghanistan, where Hugh had been before, if soldiers were killed, then there were helicopters lifted out, usually, uh, you know, their bodies might have had to drag them, you know, for, you know, stretch them for

• 56:53Speaker 04

  a short time or something like that, but it would, it would be relatively unusual for anyone to have had the kind of experience that Hugh had in Ukraine, um, whereas in Ukraine, you know, there were no helicopters flying around anywhere, um, there, there wasn't that sort of casabac system, and so situations like he had were actually very common and of- often very, very difficult, you know, most of the people I had spoke to who did stretchering jobs said it was, you know, it was the most exhausting thing they've ever done, um, you know, on the battlefield.

• 57:24Jack Murphy?

  There's another guy you profiled who had a bad experience, as I recall, and he got to a certain point, was kind of like, screw this, I'm gonna go guard this diamond mine in the Congo and make some real money and then maybe come back.

• 57:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, that was Christopher Perryman, uh, known as Pez, who, uh, who was a, you know, a highly qualified soldier, he'd fought in Iraq, in, uh, you know, in the Second Gulf War, uh, he was a trained sniper, um, and, um, yeah, he went to Ukraine thinking, yeah, very much like, this is, this is my job as a soldier, um, I, you know, uh, I've, I've got the skills, I will, I will be able to help train Ukrainians and save some other guy from losing his life because of his, his lack of, you know, his, his lack of aptitude for the task, uh, so, yeah, unfortunately, he, like, uh, like a lot of people, when

• 58:17Speaker 04

  he got there, found that the Ukrainian military system wasn't really capable of, um, you know, processing all the, the volunteers that were coming in, including the experienced people like him, um, Zelensky had not told his generals before, you know, beforehand that he was creating the legion, so he was blindsiding them, um, and they didn't really have the organizational capacity to, uh- Uh, you know, to to put all these people in barracks, uh, just as the war was starting to train them up. And to send them off in different, you know, big battalions of foreigners or whatever um to the front lines. Uh, so a lot of the soldiers like Pence found themselves sitting around in the bases at places like Yavariv.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  Where they're getting misheiled, um, they're they're doing nothing, they're just getting bored and paranoid. Wondering how much longer it's gonna take before they get sent to the front lines. Keep they keep getting promised that, you know, they'll they'll get sent soon and nothing happens. And um, he, like a lot of soldiers, ended up just kind of taking matters into his own hands. Um, he teamed up with a bunch of other guys, um, about maybe a dozen of them. All of whom had sort of got to know each other during all this period, sitting around waiting in the barracks. Sort of worked out, yeah, this guy doesn't look too look sensible. Uh, that guy doesn't look too much like a Walter Mitty, so on and so forth. And um, yeah, they uh, they they they would form these little units.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  And then they would try and bypass the Legion bureaucracy essentially, just go off. Uh, and, you know, tout their services uh around the front lines like like, you know, laborers. Uh, looking for work, really. Um, and usually what they'd do is that there'd be one person who maybe spoke a bit of Russian or Ukrainian. Who could do the introductions to certain commanders. Or some guy who maybe knew a Ukrainian commander, who knew a man who knew a man. Um, and they would they would chase down those leads sometimes and. Hope in the hope that one or two of those Ukrainian commanders would say, yeah, I can use some guys. Um, you know, you can try us, we'll we'll try you out for a couple of weeks. But it was very much on pro- probation.

• 1:00:23Speaker 04

  And unfortunately, the because there had been a few Walter Mities and bad apples. Already, you know, sort of uh, earning the Legion a re- a bad reputation. A lot of the Ukrainian commanders were actually quite unwilling to take them. And they they would find themselves just being told, thanks, but no thanks, or whatever. And um, quite a sort of unusual experience if you go to a war.

• 1:00:46Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Speaker 04

  Expecting a fight and then everybody just saying, ah, sorry, don't don't don't need you, you know.

• 1:00:51Jack Murphy?

  We're good.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, normally, you you know, you hear a lot of stories in military history about soldiers dreading the frontline and trying to get out of it. Here, here it was the opposite, and people sort of, you know, hunting for the front lines like a kind of military El Dorado.

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  And Pez found himself in that situation. Uh I think he they eventually got down to someplace in Mykolaiv in the south where they got a little bit of action but nothing very much. Just sort of, you know, uh and eventually he decided, look, I can't keep, you know, I can't stay here forever. I've been here three months. I'm running low on money. Um and um pa- payment, payment wasn't very regular in the Legion then, it is now. Uh and so he went back um to the UK, uh and I think, yeah, pursued a job um guarding a diamond mine in Congo. I'm not sure whether he ever got it or not, but he did resurface again in October um of of that same year of twenty twenty two.

• 1:01:52Speaker 04

  And uh and joined a unit that was was, you know, offered much more scope for action. And they were um they were out in uh some islands down in the uh uh in in in in southern Ukraine. On the uh on the delta area of the Dnipro River, Ukraine's main river. Um where there's lots of islands at the mouth of the river as it leads into the Black Sea. And on those islands, Russians and the Ukrainians would often occupy one half, you know, sort of rival halves of the islands. And it was Pez's job and that of his team to sort of try and um keep uh, you know, keep retain their section of the island.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  And pretty scary stuff because there's nowhere to run to if you if you get stuck, you know, there's there's not going to be a boat that's gonna let you off the island if you if if if the Russians start to do is uh start to really pile the pressure on. Um and so, yeah, he was there for a few months. There was a few gunfights. Um I think he had one or two disagreements with his with his colleagues occasionally when things went wrong. Um there's an account of that when when a gunfight goes wrong and uh um uh Pez gets blamed for not having his weapon at the there at the at the time. There were reasons why that happened, but um again, I use that example to sort of explain why, you know, what what

• 1:03:12Speaker 04

  it it nearly led to fistfights afterwards and i- i- again, it's it's what anybody else would have is just as a bad day at the office. With these guys is a, you know, a bad day at work where a few mistakes are made either side. Uh leads to people potentially getting killed and feelings running very, very high, especially when, once again, these people don't know each other. Um, anyway, press continued, but um.

• 1:03:35Jack Murphy?

  Can you, can you finish the story about how he narrowly avoided capture? Because I remember he like. Had to jump off a balcony or something like that?

• 1:03:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, so um, yeah, I can, I can plunge into a bit more detail. They were um. They were basically in a, in a house doing, uh, you know, an OP, an observation point in a house on this island. Um, one night and a whole of the Russians suddenly surrounded them. Um, it's not clear whether they actually surrounded them, knowing that they were, there were legionnaires there or that there were Ukrainians there. Or whether they actually thought, again, this is the, the element of confusion on the battlefield. That they, they, these Russians actually thought it was a, a Russian occupied OP. Um, because apparently some Russian went and knocked on the door of the house.

• 1:04:25Speaker 04

  Um, I think expecting to be let in. Um, one of the other legionnaires inside. Um, challenged him with a password. The Russian was unable to, you know, produce the password. At that point, they both realized that, you know, each other were enemy forces. Um, and I think one of the legionnaires fired a, a burst down the, down the, the stairway. To keep the Russians at bay. After that, all hell broke loose, as you would imagine. Um, and they were having, um, there were, there was machine gunfire coming in through the windows. There were smoke grenades coming through the windows. The Russians were surrounding them, shouting them, uh, uh, in English as well, kind of shouting.

• 1:05:05Speaker 04

  Come out, come out, you bitches and so on. So it was clear that I think they'd identified them as, as foreigners at that point and that there would obviously be. Potentially quite a big prize. Um, a gun battle ensued for, for quite a long time. I can't, can't, can't quite remember. How long? I don't think it was perhaps more than about half an hour, but I think it probably seemed like forever at the time. Um, and eventually, as the, as the upstairs room were filled with tear gas and smoke grenade gas that the Russians had chucked in, um, Pez sort of decided that, you know, it was, you know, couldn't see his colleagues and his comrades anymore. And leapt out of one of the windows, the upstairs window, about twenty feet, nearly broke his ankle,

• 1:05:48Speaker 04

  smashed into a side, you know, the, the, the, the wall of, uh, the, the building he just jumped out of, um, smashed his head up, um, and then kind of basically ran off through the back gardens of the, the house that he was in and somehow managed to get to safety and by some miracle, um, when, when they were, they were on the agreed rendezvous point that they would go to in eventualities like this, uh, met up with his comrades who had all, who had also survived. Again, I think we were all, all likewise convinced that, that, you know, everybody else was dead. Um, and as it turned out, nobody actually got killed in that particular incident. But, um, I, I've watched sort of video grabs of it. I, I mean, you know, it's absolutely terrifying.

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  And of course, the consequences of being caught in that situation would have been, you know, would have been dive. He weren't killed, he'd have been, um, taken Russian prisoner of war. I mean, that is something that happened to some of the other legionnaires, which we, we can perhaps talk about as well. But, um, yeah, um, uh, Pez continued there. Um, he partnered company with that particular unit, um, and, um, then, uh, went, went and joined another unit. And then in October twenty twenty three, uh, which I think was sort of later that same year after that gunfight on the island, uh, he was on another operation, um, near Snake Island in the Black Sea, um, and, uh, he was killed by mort, uh, mortifier,

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  I believe. I don't know any more details than that. Nothing ever, uh, else was ever released. But as you know, the Ukrainians are often quite secretive about, um, the, the, the details of military operations when casualties have been sustained.

• 1:07:32Speaker 04

  But yeah, he was he was one of one of a number of people who in the book who you know who are not you know suddenly not around to to have seen it seen it published.

• 1:07:44Jack Murphy?

  I I do want to ask you about the guys who were taken as prisoners of war. Those are some of the crazier stories in this book.

• 1:07:55Jack Murphy?

  There there were a couple of different guys you profile, I believe, who were captured. Can you tell us about them a bit?

• 1:08:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure. I mean, the I think there's three who are profiled in the book. A British guy named Andrew Harding. Sorry, yes, Andrew Harding, yes.

• 1:08:16Speaker 04

  So I I may have to check his name. Andrew will call him here from now on. It's been a while since I've I've read the book. And then a two Americans, Alex Strukey and Andy Hween, who may be familiar to some of your listeners, they were the first Americans to be taken captive in in June of 2022. And yeah, so Alex was a was a was a classic legionnaire in in many ways. He had served in Iraq as a top gunner in about 2009 in Baghdad,

• 1:08:58Speaker 04

  which as anyone who's spent time in Baghdad during those years will know was a very dangerous job. You're driving around in a Humvee escorting convoys of VIPs and generals. So you're a big target and Alex's job was to be in the lead Humvee with a 50 cal. You know, so if anybody if any snipers or car bombers or insurgent gangs were waiting to try and take out the convoy, Alex would probably be the first to know. So after he came back from Iraq, he had quite bad PTSD. And he tried to get other civilian jobs, he tried to become a police officer, for example.

• 1:09:39Speaker 04

  And found that, you know, I think partly because of his PTSD, he couldn't really deal with it. And also the rules of engagement as a civilian police officer were very different from those as a, you know, a lead gunner in Iraq. And he began to feel like he was a bit of a failure in life. And also being an ex-military man, you know, a career military man. You know, he sort of felt that his life had lost purpose. When the Iraq war started, he decided to go despite having, you know, a one hundred percent veterans pension with PTSD. Many would have queried that decision, you know, saying, you're, you know, you're only likely to make your demons far, far worse, surely.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  His view was, you know, th- these are demons that haunt me while I'm in civilian life. But, you know, it's a case of conditioned reflexes. And if I'm, you know, back in a combat zone, that they will be, that they will serve a useful purpose. And so hopefully will I by serving in the Legion. I think there's, I've listened to enough military podcasts to know that there are people who might dispute Alex's diagnosis of that sort of thing. But that was, that was Alex's version of events, and he said it worked. So for the first few months when he was there, he was training Ukrainian sort of military volunteers.

• 1:11:01Speaker 04

  And he was an ex-staff sergeant, US Army Staff Sergeant, so he was used to dealing with sort of groups of twenty or thirty men. And I think he felt he's, you know, he's making a lot of difference, effectively as a force multiplier. More useful really in some ways than what he could achieve individually as a, you know, as a combatant. But that, that, that training work. Uh stopped after a while, I think fell foul of Ukrainian military bureaucracy, as things often do. And um I think like many people, he was keen just to sort of see what the combat was like, so he he joined a volunteer unit up in Kharkiv. Uh they were sent to do a drone recce one day on his very first mission.

• 1:11:42Speaker 04

  And uh about they they they were up in some forests outside of Kharkiv. And they ran into a much larger Russian unit that effectively ambushed them. Uh the the unit he was with scattered, there was about seven or eight of them, they all scattered in different directions. Alex and his companion uh had been told to look for another guy who'd gone missing. Um they felt reluctant to leave the area while this other guy was unaccounted for, mainly out of a sense of duty. Uh that meant that they were still there when the Russians started infiltrating through the what they were they saw through the woods, an enormous tracked vehicle going along like a, you know, like some kind of prehistoric dinosaur.

• 1:12:25Speaker 04

  That was their sort of first glimpse of the Russians, with a whole lot of Russian soldiers wandering by them. Um they then tried to escape out, they I think they walked for about eight, seven or eight hours through the Ukrainian forest, trying to head back roughly in the direction of Kharkiv, no idea who they might be running into, got chased by a wild boar at one point. Um and eventually, I think, just at the point when they they were hoping they might have got back to sort of what looked like a familiar village, um uh they realised that uh the soldiers ahead of them were in fact a big, a large gang of Russians. By the time they the two groups laid eyes on each other, it was too late to run and they had to surrender, basically. Um and then Alex, uh he was he was roughed up a bit at the time, not too badly, I think

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  he said the the Russian soldiers that caught them were like, sort of, yeah, you know, you're another soldier, yeah, you're a foreigner, but you know, we're all soldiers here together. So just the usual kind of customary kicking. And then a few conversations about, you know, what's, you know, what's Joe Biden like? What's um, you know, what are American women like? You know, are they hot? All this sort of stuff. Uh here, have a cigarette, mate, have have a good. Drink of water. That then abruptly changed when they were handed over to um the Russian intelligence services. And um uh Alex spent about five weeks in a Russian black site prison. We'll call it, he doesn't really know what it was, but it said it wasn't an official prison anywhere. Somewhere probably in the the Donetsk People's Republic, the separatist held bit of Ukraine.

• 1:13:55Speaker 04

  Um where he was tortured pretty much nonstop by um uh Russian secret police. Um who thought he was a spy of some sort. Um and were perhaps not surprisingly reluctant to think that any American would be crazy enough to join. The international legion, you know, he was sort of saying, yeah, I'm here as a volunteer. And they're saying, no, you you wouldn't, you you wouldn't do that, you know, you wouldn't be mad enough. Um which was which was a hard one to dissuade them of. Um and uh he was electrocuted um quite a few times. Uh uh you know, fairly badly, which he said was far worse than any of the other uh treatment that he tortured, he suffered.

• 1:14:36Speaker 04

  They also did noise, you know, noise torture on them, put them in a cell and um uh you know, playing very very loud music. Uh at them, um although uh rather amusingly, uh they they they played band, heavy, lots of heavy metal bands. Like Ramstein and and other people, you know, sort of death metal and speed metal. American stuff, which I think they thought would be the epitome of torture and might well have worked quite well again, you know, on Guantanamo Bay inmates. But for Alex, it was exactly the sort of mu- music that suburban teenagers of Alex's generation grew up with. In America, so it's, oh, you know, here's Ramstein, you know, that's a bit loud and it's, you know, it's the third time I've heard this one today, but.

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  Uh it was manageable and it it kind of reminded of home and I think they played played this this thing on a kind of loop of eighty tracks a day. And it allowed Alex to keep time um in a way that he couldn't otherwise because the lights were switched on the whole time. And that they had this sort of slightly surreal experience when his captors told him that they were actually going to try and negotiate for his release via a prison swap or something like that. And he assumed, I think, as we all would, that, you know, somebody, you know, the Russian secret police, secret services would have some sort of hotline to the FBI or the CIA that they could do for, you know, organising these sorts of things. They didn't.

• 1:16:03Speaker 04

  They presented Alex with a downloaded list of phone numbers for various US departments, US government departments, that they'd printed off the internet and said, right, you start ringing around these. And so he was ringing around, you know, the Department of Homeland Security switchboard and various other places, and, you know, most of the time never getting through to anybody. And on the other, and on the other occasion where, you know, he did get through to some switchboard operator, you know, when your spiel is, hello, my name is Alex Druckey, you know, I'm a prisoner of war in Russia, I'm being held by the, you know, the Russian secret police, the answer is, yes, I'm sure you are, thank you, sir, we do not take nuisance

• 1:16:45Speaker 04

  callers here, you know, slams the phone down. And eventually, I think, the Russian, his Russian captors discovered a number for the veterans, the US veterans crisis line, which is a real life, you know, help, help number, and which Alex himself had rung several times when, you know, in his bad days back in the US when he was suffering badly from PTSD and overdoing it on the booze. So Alex said, no, this is not the right number to ring, this is a 24-hour veterans crisis line, to which his captor apparently said, well, you know, this is a crisis though, and you are a veteran, so ring the line. I think at that point Alex kind of went.

• 1:17:31Speaker 04

  Do you know what, I've had enough of this. You you you know, you might be right. And so he rang it up and of course, being a veterans crisis line. You know, designed for people who are suicidal, there was actually a human being at the end of the phone. Um, who did listen and who did sort of then say, yeah, okay, um. I'll I'll try and find a number for um, somebody who can help you and the. Short, you know, very shortly afterwards, put him through to a State Department official who clearly knew who Alex was and who knew about the case. Who was in a position to start the process for um, negotiations for Alex's release. And I won't give away too much in the book, but um, basic uh. Alex spent about the next four months, he was transferred to a civilian prison.

• 1:18:16Speaker 04

  Um, with um, uh, a number of other volunteers, about a dozen of them. Uh, from various different parts of the world, includes a few other Americans and some Brits. And they were held there and eventually released as part of a prisoner swap. Um, but the conditions in that civilian prison, although they were not getting tortured on a regular basis anymore, were still pretty grim. Um, and Alex sort of reminds, tells a story about, there was a, there was a trustee in the prison, i.e. another inmate, a Ukrainian inmate. Um, who was a uh, um, he was employed to sort of sweep the cells. And change the light bulbs in on the CCTV in the cell when that went wrong.

• 1:18:59Speaker 04

  And um, uh, the the the prison guards sort of took great delight in mentioning to Alex, so that that guy, yeah, he was a cannibal. Um, he's a convicted cannibal, he's serving several licenses for eating people. And uh, one day, they uh, they sort of, the prison guards asked this this cannibal. Um, you know, uh, which of the three prisoners in here would you, would you prefer to eat? Cause they had Alex. And then they had Andy, who was Asian, and they also had an African American. Uh, in the cell as well, as as on which ethnicity would you prefer to dine off? Um, which I think was an example of kind of a certain sort of dark Russian humour. Um, and um.

• 1:19:40Speaker 04

  As Alex, you know, Alex later reflected that this, this, this, um, this cannibal, I think his name was Ego, was actually, you know, one of the few friendly faces in the prison. And he would occasionally give him the, his, you know, his, his used cigarettes, um, cast offs, uh, which they would then, Alex and his friends would then sort of dissect and make roll ups from, from using bits of, um, uh, bits of paper, bits of newspaper. Uh, and, you know, but he did sort of say, you know, when, when your idea of a good day is getting, you know, cast off cigarettes from a convicted cannibal, does sort of suggest that, you know, perhaps you're a bit of a low point.

• 1:20:22Jack Murphy?

  I, I know the thing that I thought, uh, that I thought was very interesting, was, uh, he mentions how the, um, interrogators, I guess they were at the other place, at the, uh, at the black site, presumably FSB guys. Uh, they were very good at torturing the hell out of people, but they were very naive about how America works, like just oblivious.

• 1:20:47Speaker 04

  Yes, um, I think they, uh, they, they thought that Alex had been, their official, uh, their suspicion was that Alex had been sent in by, um, some US sort of secret service to equip the Ukrainians with, um, uh, the, the means to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. Uh, the, the basis for this being that, um, Alex had, uh, done a course while he was a, a US Army Staff Sergeant on WMD disposal, which I think was a fairly standard course that a lot of US military soldiers did prior to the, um, the, the, the, the two thousand and three deployment to Iraq. All that meant was you knew how to recognize potentially hazardous materials

• 1:21:29Speaker 04

  and the purposes, you know, the, the sort of procedures for potentially disposing of them or making them safe. Um, they, yeah, they, they seem to have no real concept of, of who he was or anything like that, and no way of disbelieving him, uh, in any way. Um, and, yeah, more generally, I think they're, um,

• 1:21:52Speaker 04

  Their, their, their sort of, a lot of their sort of expectations or preconceptions about Americans seem to be drawn from, you know, reading US spy novels and so on. You know, it was, it was quite comic. You would have thought perhaps it was a, you know, just a, a, a play of a ploy of some sort to hide the fact that they actually knew what they were doing, but often it didn't seem like that.

• 1:22:18Jack Murphy?

  And then tell us about the guys in Moropol.

• 1:22:23Speaker 04

  In Mariupol?

• 1:22:24Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, so Mariupol, as most of your listeners will remember, was the city that the Russians really laid siege to at the beginning of the war. It's down on, down on the Azov, I think it's on the, on the Azov, the coast of the Azov Sea and southeast, on Ukraine's sort of southeastern border. And yeah, it was just basically razed to the ground by shelling. And there was a big, the Ukrainian forces there mounted a last stand at the Azov Steel Works, which is this sort of vast complex, steel complex, one of the biggest in the world, that runs for several miles. It's just an enormous steel

• 1:23:08Speaker 04

  refinery. So there's a million and one places to hide there if you are a soldier. You know, there's gantries, there's pipes, there's underground bunkers, there's, there's miles and miles of service tunnels. And also because this is a Soviet-built facility, there are lots of purpose-built military bunkers there as well that were built in the anticipation that Mariupol and the rest of the Soviet Union would one day be attacked by the US or by the West. So, you know, it's, it's both a factory and a citadel. And so the Ukrainians mounted a last stand there. And among them was a, a British fighter by the name of John Harding. And, you know, he

• 1:23:54Speaker 04

  Um, he had actually joined the Ukrainian military several years before uh as a volunteer, having previously fought for the um the Kurdish as a volunteer with the Kurdish anti ISIS forces in Iraq. Um, and um he was an ex parachute regiment soldier, he'd also fought in the Falklands conflict in nineteen eighty two. Which meant he was getting on by the time the uh the war in um uh in Ukraine loomed. Um, and I think in fact he was he was due to retire, it was his sixtieth birthday was was coming up. Around um i- i- in twenty twenty two sometime. And I think a month before the war started in January twenty twenty two, he'd said to his commander.

• 1:24:37Speaker 04

  I I mean, I'm gonna, it's time I retired, my legs are not what they were, and you know, I don't wanna be a liability. And the commander said, well, fine, yeah, but do you know, the paperwork will be easier if you if you just wait out, wait it out a month. Um, uh, so why don't you stay on to the end of February? And John said, yeah, sure, and at at that time, none of them thought the Ukrainian invasion was gonna actually happen. They they just thought this troop buildup was just another, you know, another no- no- another saber rattling exercise by Putin. So he stayed on and then on the twenty third of uh um uh February, the night before the invasion. He literally had his bags packed to head back to the UK. And then he got the message the next morning from his comrades saying, oh, yeah, the Russians are coming in across the border.

• 1:25:23Speaker 04

  And John said, how many of them? And the reply came, all of them. And so it was that John found himself among the um uh the soldiers manning the the the Azov Brigade, who were manning the um the the the sort of last stand in the steel factory in the pole, the Azov Steel Factory. Um, and he he gives a pretty graphic account of that, it it's, you know, they they held out for a long term. They basically managed to slow the Russian advance in across the rest of Ukraine quite significantly. Um, so the operation was a success from that point of view. But um as as the siege went on, I think it lasted until.

• 1:26:04Speaker 04

  Early May, so you know, nearly three months, they ran low on supplies and ammunition and also on medicines and anesthetics. And John gives a very vivid account at one point of having two, you know, soldiers, you know, suffering gangrene in their wounds and having to perform amputations without anesthetic. Um, and, you know, so they would have a surgeon with a bone saw who would do the job as quickly as he could on the leg or something, which used to take a couple of minutes, and then they would have about six other soldiers just there to hold the, the patient down, um, to, to, to try and keep them still when, um, you know, on the operating table.

• 1:26:46Speaker 04

  And I said to John, um, what was your sort of, you know, what way did, was the only way to prepare people for this? Uh, and he said, no, not really. All he would say is this, this is really gonna fucking hurt, mate. Um, and if you want, I can stick a piece of wood in your mouth that you can bite. Um, but yeah, that, that's, that sort of thing, you know, just absolute extremes of experience. And eventually, yeah, they, they, they were ordered to surrender, put and sealed the place off. He actually realised that he couldn't actually, um, get the soldiers, get, get the Azov. He didn't wanna send his own soldiers in because he realised they'd just still get, keep getting killed. He sealed it off and then, um, the Azov soldiers were, uh, agreed to surrender, an internationally

• 1:27:28Speaker 04

  broken surrender, um, on the condition that they would not actually be, uh, that, that they would be taken into Russian custody but not harmed. And of course, um, they were all tortured to within an inch of their life. John was, you know, got a really severe kicking during his spell, his five week spell in the Black Site, um.

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• 1:29:47Speaker 04

  To which he tried to make it worse by saying to them, you know, you hit like my sister, you all hit like girls. I think basically actually trying to get them, daring them to kill him, you know, rather than sort of subject him to really prolonged, serious, more, you know, more considered torture.

• 1:30:07Speaker 04

  Um, it didn't, uh, but it did break his sternum. And then later, when he was released from captivity, uh, I think, um, he was taken to hospital sus- uh, a few months later, having suffered a suspected heart attack. And the doctor said, actually, the signs that you suffered an earlier heart attack, uh, which is probably while you were in captivity. It's a, you know, it's a miracle you're, you're still alive. Um, so yeah, J- John is one of, you know, w- one of thousands of Azov soldiers who sort of went through that experience, but one of relatively few Westerners who, you know, who's been around to tell the tale. And I think that's one of the valuable parts of the book is that you've got, um, American and British soldiers giving firsthand accounts of what that brutal,

• 1:30:52Speaker 04

  what the, what the brutality is like in the Russian system. Because with the best will in the world, to some audiences, um, around the world, when they hear Ukrainians talking about what happened, they often don't perhaps believe, you know, might not believe them 100% because they feel these are people who've got skin in the game. Whereas that's less likely when, when it's Westerners who are, um, who are giving those accounts.

• 1:31:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. I mean, as you say that, it reminds me of, uh, an American World War II veteran named Jerry Sage, who was captured and he was held in that cl- that, that prison is like Stalag III. It was the Great Escape where they, they bear, they tried to dig out. He got transferred. He wasn't part of that. But anyway, his memoir, what you're saying that reminds me of it is in his memoir, he talks about the end of the war and he, his position where he, uh, is gets taken over by the Russians. And so the Russians, you know, capture him, liberate him, and they're gonna be the ones that repatriate him back to the United States. And he saw how they treated the Poles and other Slavic

• 1:31:55Jack Murphy?

  people in Eastern Europe. It was just disgusted by it. Um, I think he actually got released through Odessa. I think from Odessa, he sailed on a ship to Egypt and then the American military picked him back up. Um, but history repeats itself.

• 1:32:11Speaker 04

  It does indeed. Yeah. And it's, uh, I mean, one of the other soldiers, Andrew Hill, the, the guy I previously described as Andrew Harding, the British guy. Apologies, Andrew, if you're listening.

• 1:32:22Speaker 04

  He, uh, when, when he got back to the UK, you know, uh, he. There, there, there's, there's no real support for um legionnaires who've, who've been through trauma or injury. Uh, because the British government, like the American government, does not sanction them going out there to Ukraine. Uh, it doesn't, it doesn't stop them, but it doesn't sanction them either. Um, uh, there's, it doesn't, doesn't endorse them going. And so you, you don't get, you know, you, you, you can't go to the nearest US military hospital or UK military hospital. And get medical or, you know, um, mental health trauma help. Um, and he ended up going to some local um men's help group, um, you know, near his house.

• 1:33:06Speaker 04

  A perfectly good, well-run mental health charity that had been recommended to him by a friend, but um. It, you know, he, it was one of those things where you, you know, you, you turn up and you're the new guy in the group and it's like, you know. Please share your experience. And he sort of said like, you know, I'm Andrew Hill. British military volunteer in Ukraine. I was taken prisoner of war by the Russians. And I was tortured uh, um, for five weeks and then held in a POW camp where I nearly starved to death. Um, and you can sort of see, he, he said he, you could see sort of jaws dropping by a mile in this room. Um, and you know, the majority of the, the other guys in there are people just with every, everyday complaints about, you know.

• 1:33:50Speaker 04

  Drink, drink problems, uh, drug problems, um, arguments with the wife. Uh, depression, you know, very much sort of civilian first world issues. And I think he talked for about an hour and a half in that first session. It was supposed to be everybody had ten minutes each. But the rest of them were all just like, really? So what happened then? What happened then? What happened then? And um, I, I think it was an interesting evening for, for his, his fellow, uh, um, you know. He, he, he, his, his fellow, the people also in the session. Um, and it no doubt put their problems into perspective, but it really wasn't suitable for him and he, I don't think he went back. Um, he needed, you know, to be in with, with other military. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:31Speaker 04

  Same time, I mean, there wouldn't have been any other military people who would have had an experience comparable to that. There were, you know, I don't know if there's anybody in the British military living or dead in, in, you know, in the last century, who would have had experience of being tortured by the FSB. Um. You might have had a few who'd been experiences of, uh, you know, mistreatment in captivity.

• 1:34:56Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, A- Andy McNab.

• 1:34:57Speaker 04

  Something like that, but yeah.

• 1:35:00Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, maybe Andy McNab in the, uh, in the Gulf War.

• 1:35:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that would be the only sort of comparable experience. And, you know, that was a long time ago. And, yeah, that it is. It, it, the, the experiences would not have been entirely comparable at any way.

• 1:35:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:16Speaker 04

  Uh, you know, Andy McNab was special forces. Andrew, Andrew Hill was not, although he, he, he'd done, you know, he, he'd done camp, conduct under capture training. He was a training infantry guy. I think actually, given what he's been through, seemed to manage to cope quite well. Although I, I, I make a point. Um, I'm not talking specifically about Andrew's case here, but I, I never make any judgments about sort of, you know, what kind of mental health state any of the people I interview are, are in when I interview them, because they, they, they may not, they may not well disclose a lot about, you know, what they're feeling inside, even if ostensibly, you know, they, they appear to be, you know, pretty, pretty stable on the outside, yeah.

• 1:35:56Jack Murphy?

  And the, the story about how these POWs got released is like one of the most bizarre stories um, that anyone's likely to read in, in quite a while.

• 1:36:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I think, um, when they, they were there for about four months and they were all just, they, they, several of them have been sentenced, you know, appeared in court, um, in, in, in Russian run courts, uh, where they'd been told that they were going to get the death sentence. Uh, and if, if that wasn't going to happen, they thought they'd get at least twenty five years in, in the jail they were in, which, given the conditions there, would have meant a death sentence by the means. Um, so very few of them, I think, expected to last more than about a year. Alex Druckey, who we spoke about earlier, um, had a nail hidden, uh, in his mattress, uh, some nail that he pulled out of the, um, the metal strut for the mattress, which I think he said, you know.

• 1:36:54Speaker 04

  If needs be, I will use this to slit my throat. Uh, if if this lasts to be on the point where I can stand it, you know, maybe in another year. Um, they pretty much give it up, oh. And then there was something told, right, you you're all moving from this jail. They weren't told why. Uh, and in in initially, I think they thought this was possibly the moment where they were going to be taken and sent to a firing squad. Uh, they were then um loaded into a lorry in extremely uncomfortable stressed positions, all kind of bound up together. Um, and driven for about twelve hours to an unknown destination, all blindfolded.

• 1:37:33Speaker 04

  Uh, almost willing death by the time they got there, aft- after being tw- twelve hours of being trussed up in stressed positions. Um, and um then they found themselves at an airport um in, I think, Rostov-on-Don, which is um. Uh, one of the Russian cities that acts as a forward base for the for for Russian operations in Ukraine. And so they said, all right, well, we're out in the, you know, we're out of Ukraine, something's clearly happening. Um, and then they um, uh, they were then put on a plane. Uh, with a whole load of Arabs uh on the plane, Arab men in expensive dress, you know, sort of expensive suits. And they're thinking, what is going on here? They're still not told what's going on, really.

• 1:38:14Speaker 04

  And um thinking maybe, you know, these Syrians who have been transferred to uh President Assad's tender mercies. Uh, who who's a who's a mate of Putin's at the time. Uh, or it's just the plane gonna get go up in the sky. And, you know, we're we're gonna we're gonna be told that we're on a prison swap and then it's just gonna get shot down. Or develop mysterious mechanical failure, uh, and that'll be the end of that. But anyway, they duly landed in Saudi Arabia and at that point they met the US diplomats. And were told, like, yeah, um, you you you've been, there's been a prison swap. Uh, you're free to, you know, head home. Um, and some of them had had an inkling that this was happening on the plane uh on the way over.

• 1:38:58Speaker 04

  Um, and the the main reason for that was that they had, uh, there was this sort of wealthy looking businessman who wandered up and down the plane at one at one point. Um, and he had a striking resemblance to a man called Roman Abramovich. I don't know how well he, is he well known in the US?

• 1:39:15Jack Murphy?

  No, not well known.

• 1:39:17Speaker 04

  Um, well, he's he's a Russian oligarch and he's he's famous in the UK because he owns or used to own Chelsea Football Club. Um, famous football club in the UK, um, he's a billionaire. And he he'd been sanctioned subsequent to the start of the Ukraine war. He'd been sanctioned for his alleged links to President Putin. Um, but he's familiar to a lot of these legionnaires who are keen keen footballers, um, because of the fact that he he had owned Chelsea Football Club. And one of them said to said to this chap, um, as he wandered past this man in the, in, you know, the World Cup suit. He said, you don't know what, mate, you look just like that guy Roman Abramovich, the guy who owns Chelsea. Have you ever heard of him? And this man turned to him and sort of said, yes, that is because I am Roman Abramovich.

• 1:40:01Speaker 04

  Um, and it turned out that Roman Abramovich had organized this pro- this prison swap, broken it uh a deal. Between, um, uh, well, I suppose essentially Britain, America and, um, uh, the Russians. Uh, whereby, um, the the foreign, uh, volunteers and about two hundred and fifty other Ukrainian prisons of war. Were freed in return for a number of Russian prisoners of war. And Abramovich had done this, I think, apparently partly, um, to, uh, sort of, I think, to. And, you know, sort of mend his reputation, um, with the West and presumably hope. Long term that he, you know, he would be able to regain ownership of his assets in the UK, um, including Chelsea Football Club.

• 1:40:46Speaker 04

  Um, there's also no coincidence, sort of like that the the plane landed in Saudi Arabia. Who's, um, who's, uh, president, um, president, who's lead up, um, Mohammed bin Salman. Um, the Crown Prince, uh, was, um, you know, was also in the diplomatic. Doghouse at the time over the um the killing of a uh uh Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Um which he was accused of um giving the um uh the red light, the the green light to. So both of them had a bit of um reputational laundering to do, but that led to the the freeing of um about, you know, twelve or thirteen legionnaires. And many Ukrainian soldiers who would otherwise um have uh probably still been there. And that's how Alex Trukey, for example,

• 1:41:31Speaker 04

  came to fly home um uh at the at the sort of tail end of twenty twenty two. And was then Julie Grill for another three weeks or several hours by um uh some FBI guys, which he didn't really want, but um he gave lengthy descriptions of the people who tortured him and hopes to this day, I think, to maybe one day see them uh across the dock of a war crimes court, but.

• 1:41:53Jack Murphy?

  Hope so.

• 1:41:56Jack Murphy?

  Uh another person mentioned in your book who has been a guest on this show before is uh Ryan O'Leary.

• 1:42:02Speaker 04

  Oh, yes, yes. Um, yeah, I mean, Ryan, I I never met. I I think I we did try to interview him once, but um just the the the the times never.

• 1:42:12Jack Murphy?

  Oh, we we we have like a three and a half hour episode with him. He had a lot to say. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:17Speaker 04

  You'll know, well, y- yes, um uh you'll know most of Ryan's uh history then, but um uh uh I I interviewed uh one of the soldiers in the book, Jack Knight, uh worked for Ryan, um uh uh worked under Ryan um uh as part of Chosen Company um and fought a number of battles with them. They were a volunteer unit uh of made up mainly of legionnaires. Um and the the interesting thing about Chosen Company, apart from the battles that uh they uh they fought in, was that they were essentially uh essentially an effort to sort of improve the professionalism of the Legion, I think. Um it had got a bad reputation because of the uh the Walter Mitty characters um within the Legion and the and the

• 1:43:01Speaker 04

  the sort of fantasists and so on. Um other legionnaires, Legion units had a bit of a reputation for the re only fighting one week in three and spending a lot of time in bars and brothels and and brawling and other stuff. Um and um then there were a a few other Legionnaire units that, you know, were were okay, but didn't really do much, didn't really see much action. And um Chosen was sort of formed, I think, as a sort of a a more serious elite Legion within the Legion, as it were. Um, and the, the, the, the selection criteria was pretty rigorous. You had to have had, I think, prior combat experience or certainly prior military experience.

• 1:43:42Speaker 04

  Uh, and also, um, you know, the, the idea was that you would be, you would be on prolonged deployments, no sort of spending one week in the Donbass and the next week in a bar in Kiev. Uh, and also that you would be, you, they were, they were going to be frontline combat specialists doing trench charges and so on. And that you should expect to be injured or killed, no, no whingeing or whining if that happened. So a pretty serious unit and, um, uh, Jack Knight, you know, uh, signed up to serve with them. Having had, I think, a slightly frustrating tour to start off with where he'd, he'd, you know, he'd done his best to get stuck in in the action down south in Kherson in twenty twenty two.

• 1:44:26Speaker 04

  Um, but then the Russians rather unsportingly then pulled out of Kherson. So the big battle for Kherson, which I think he was hoping to take part in, uh, didn't happen. And he, he sort of, it's a count in the book of him sort of wandering around liberated Kherson. And being about the only person who isn't sort of cheering and waving, sort of thinking like, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's nice to be here to see everybody free, but I would have liked to have played more of a role in it. And, um, Jack joined, um, uh, um, the, um, the chosen company, I think, uh, um, partly to sort of hope to get some proper action. Um, and he, he, he had partly in, in his, in his sort of military, in his family history.

• 1:45:11Speaker 04

  Uh, his great, great, great grandfather had won the Victoria Cross, uh, in World War One. And he was keen to sort of try and follow in his great, great grandfather's footsteps because he was from a military family, that kind of thing. It runs quite thick in the blood if you've got a distinguished ancestor.

• 1:45:29Speaker 04

  And yeah, during one of the battles in the Donbass, uh, where they were trying to take some trenches, things did not go according to plan. There was a large number of soldiers of chosen company were injured uh early on in the battle. And Jack, who was staying at the back at the time because he was there as a Sapper, ready to go in and clear mines later on, um, realised that he wasn't going to be doing much mine clearance if everybody got killed and didn't come back alive. So he volunteered to go uh go into the combat zone and uh try and stretcher a few people out and did so. Um, I think at one point, um, uh, having to rescue a bunch of Ukrainian guys who strayed

• 1:46:14Speaker 04

  into a landmine, a minefield, uh, and um, the way he told us, just decided to, he had no choice but just to walk randomly into the minefield himself to get them and hope that he wouldn't get blown up himself, basically ignoring everything he'd spent years training to do uh during his um, his, his, his royal ordinance and Sapper awareness course, you know, which is always about probing the ground carefully in front of you. Uh, if you're in a la- in a minefield with a, with a Prada thing and taking each sort of step, you know, like an inch at a time. Um, he said, there's no time for that. And um, uh, you know, there were drones overhead, there's machine gunfire, I've just got to

• 1:46:57Speaker 04

  go for it and try and get these guys out and hope for the best. And that's what he did. And he ended up getting himself a medal. And I think he felt that, you know, he'd uh, you know, to some extent, at least followed in his, his ancestors' footsteps. So again, somebody who was, he was there very much looking for purpose, who didn't really feel terribly happy in civilian life. And I think certainly found it in Ukraine, um, uh, doing things like that, despite the sort of very high risks that you were running.

• 1:47:26Jack Murphy?

  And then kind of on like the darker side of things, you talk about two international volunteers who were, we think, murdered by their own people.

• 1:47:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, I've got to be a little bit careful about what I say on these ones because I've written about these cases extensively, both in the book. And um, the uh, you know, uh, uh, and, and in, and, and in the Telegraph, the newspaper I work for. And um, they're both live cases, as in there are, you know, th- th- no- nobody has been arrested in either case. Uh, yet, um, there is a particular suspect in one case. Um, uh, o- o- one case involves a guy called Daniel Burke, a military volunteer that uh, I interviewed for the book several times. And who I spent time with out in Ukraine. Uh, he had fought, um, like many of them have for the, with the Kurdish anti ISIS forces. Um, in, in, in, in Syria.

• 1:48:24Speaker 04

  And so when he came to Ukraine, he brought a certain amount of experience. Um, as somebody who was used to fighting, you know, the people's wars, he, he knew it would be a dis- disorganized. Um, he knew you would probably have to sort of get quite a lot of things done for yourself. You couldn't expect the bureaucracy to do it for you. And he was a sort of mascot in some ways for the um, uh, for the volun- for the volunteers. Early on, he ran a unit called the Dark Angels that did some early operations that, uh, who posted details of. Themselves shooting up a Russian tank on social media that got huge numbers of followings. Um, and you know, it was kind of very much summarized the kind of thing that a lot of volunteers wanted to be doing, I think, you know.

• 1:49:06Speaker 04

  Um, but anyway, in um, in late twenty twenty, September twenty twenty three or so, uh. Uh, he um, he, he'd actually diversified into running a, a humanitarian mission instead, this sort of. Frontline rescue and support mission. And he went missing for several weeks. Nobody knew what had happened to him. Um, it was the first, maybe just been on a, you know, sort of bit of a booze bent or something for a few days. Uh, and if you know the Legionnaires well, you'll know that it's not unusual for someone, you know, if they've been on a booze bed, don't expect to hear of. Don't, don't expect them to declare them missing for at least about a week, you know.

• 1:49:47Speaker 04

  But um, anyway, um, he uh, he had indeed disappeared. Uh, a police investigation was launched and eventually um, his body was recovered from uh, under a um, a sewer. Uh, or a culvert near a firing range in the countryside outside of uh, Zaporizhzhya in eastern Ukraine. And um I think initially people thought, well, maybe, you know, have Russians done this or something like that, but it. It later became clear that um a fellow volunteer had um carried out, uh well, it appeared. Uh to have carried this this um this killing out, he this volunteer later claimed.

• 1:50:26Speaker 04

  That he'd shot Daniel by mistake, um uh having sort of pretended to uh. What was it? He said um uh he said, I think I think the term is fragging, where you point a weapon at somebody um when you shouldn't do, and you know, it's violating basic military procedure. Apparently, Daniel had said to him, uh, you're fragging me, um while they're out at this range, just having a practice shoot or something.

• 1:50:51Jack Murphy?

  Oh, flagging, uh yeah, flagging.

• 1:50:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, flagging or fragging?

• 1:50:56Jack Murphy?

  Flagging. So flagging is when you're uh going over with your muzzle over friendly guys that you don't want to shoot. Fragging is when you actually kill one of your own guys intentionally.

• 1:51:06Speaker 04

  Pardon me.

• 1:51:07Jack Murphy?

  No, no, it's okay.

• 1:51:08Speaker 04

  Flagging, yeah. Well, basically, when you're pointing your weapon at somebody, sorry, I'm for anyone listening, I'm not a, I'm not an ex-soldier, so um.

• 1:51:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, no worries.

• 1:51:17Speaker 04

  Wh- wh- when you point a weapon at somebody, um you know, who's a friendly force. Uh you know, something that, you know, e- e- every boy, whatever, given a gun or an airgun from, uh, you know. From the day, from the age of five upwards is the first rule of weapons craft you're ever told, never point a gun at anyone, whether it's loaded or not. Um, uh, apparently, um, this this suspect in his shooting had, um, he he later told police. That um he had, um, he uh pointed the gun, his gun at Daniel. Daniel said, don't do that, mate, that's stupid, he. Remonstrated for him, uh, at which point the suspect, um, then, um, apparently.

• 1:52:00Speaker 04

  So they said, don't worry, it's the gun, the gun is not loaded, and then fired, you know, pulled the trigger on the gun at Daniel. And sure enough, the gun was loaded, he emptied a burst into him and killed him, then panicked and hid him in his body in the sewer. This was the account that he allegedly later gave to police who arrested him. Um, it's not verified, so I should put that health warning on it. Uh, but as you can imagine, it raises more questions than it answers. Why would someone experienced um soldier ever point a gun at anybody? Um, in the first place, let alone then pull the trigger on somebody, because if you imagine that happening in real life. Uh, even if that gun was not loaded, the next thing that Daniel would likely have done, having already been annoyed, would probably give him a, you know.

• 1:52:45Speaker 04

  Punch him in the face and say, don't you ever fucking do that again. I I would have done, I think. Um, so the explanation sort of do- doesn't seem to sort of bear much um truth. Um, unfortunately, for reasons that have never been made clear, the Ukrainian police then um. Uh, let this individual go. Um, uh, he was released on bail to a hotel and then he then made himself scarce, perhaps not surprisingly.

• 1:53:10Jack Murphy?

  And and he's on the lam.

• 1:53:13Speaker 04

  So?

• 1:53:13Jack Murphy?

  He's on the lam still.

• 1:53:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, and his whereabouts to this day are unknown, but he is wanted by the Ukrainian police in connection with Daniel's death. Um, I I I covered that one in the book quite a bit, partly because I knew Daniel. Um, and um, partly I wanted to sort of try and give a detailed account of what happened. Because there was a lot, a great deal of claim and counterclaim in it. Um, and partly because it it it sort of, when it, when he disappeared, it was. Very, very soon the finger of suspicion pointed at fellow legionnaires, even though nobody knew what had happened at that point. It was just this sort of sense of there are a lot of dodgy legionnaires out there, and it seems likely that Daniel's. Has unfortunately had some sort of run in with one of them.

• 1:54:00Speaker 04

  And, you know, it just pointed to the sort of, i- i- i- the sense that. There were a lot of unsavory characters out there and that the Legion's betting was not very good. It did not point a very good picture of of the Legion at that point. Um. And that was similar in the other case that I write about in the book where um. So a a legionnaire called um Jordan Chaddock, a British guy who was um an ex member of the Royal Scots Guards. Who was found in a reservoir in eastern Ukraine, um some way from the front lines uh in. Uh in the summer of twenty twenty three was lying in the dead in the reservoir with his hands tied behind his back.

• 1:54:42Speaker 04

  Uh as I say, the reservoir was was some way from the front line, so it was on, it it it. He did not appear to have been, you know, uh killed by Russian soldiers. Um. There were no known Russian separatist groups operating in that area or indeed anywhere else in. You know, Ukrainian territory, so it couldn't didn't seem like it was them either. And again, suspicion quickly focused on his fellow legionnaires. Um, uh, and apparently he'd had an argument the night before with a bunch of his fellow legionnaires while drinking. And um uh some sort of fight had broken out. Um, and um the next thing that anybody knew was that he, you know, his body had shown up in this in this lake.

• 1:55:25Speaker 04

  There's a there's there's a limit to what I can say on that one again, because it's uh um it's quite a complicated story. There's a lot of. He said, they said, um, uh, I probably couldn't do justice to it on a podcast, even if I even if I tried to be honest.

• 1:55:40Jack Murphy?

  But the stories given about how he ended up in that reservoir just don't make sense.

• 1:55:45Speaker 04

  No, yeah, um, uh, you know, at one point it was said that he was being taken to a local police station. Um, where, you know, he was gonna be held because he was drunk. Uh, but in instead he ended up in this um uh in this reservoir instead. And you have to ask yourself if somebody's supposed to be getting taken to a police station because they're drunk and they have, you know, they're they're. They've needed to be restrained by handcuffs for their own safety because they've been involved in the punch up. Uh, how does that end up with them then dead in a reservoir, you know, so somebody somewhere. Who would have been, you know, in charge of him as a, you know, uh, you know, in in custody.

• 1:56:26Speaker 04

  Uh, has some questions to answer clearly because even if somebody has been violent, even if somebody has been restrained as a prisoner. Um, you know, at that point, most soldiers would know, especially if they've ever taken prisons in war or anything. Um, that there are certain procedures you follow to, you know, if only to prevent the prison harming themselves or. Or or anything else. And clearly that wasn't, uh, that didn't happen. And the. Uh, the the tragedy of that case, or one of the tragedies is that, um, uh, uh, quite apart from Jordan's death. Is that, you know, nobody has been brought to book for it, and there's very little sign of any proper judicial process happening.

• 1:57:05Speaker 04

  And very little sign of the British government really doing anything to try and question the other British. Soldiers who were with him at the time. I've spoken to several of them. I've asked them. You know, did, you know, have you had any, um, anybody from the Foreign Office or the British police asking to speak to you about this? None of them have, you know, and, uh, uh, that would not be, that would not be difficult if I can find out who they are. Um, the, you know, the Ukrainian police know who they are. They interviewed them all afterwards. Um, you just think. What, why is a, why is a procedure not under, not, not underway so that, um. Jordan's mother, um, among other people, uh, can get some proper answers about what happened. Even if it turns out it was some sort of misadventure, yeah.

• 1:57:50Speaker 04

  But tha- tha- that is life in the Legion, you know, you're often not fighting with. Um, with, with people who, you're often fighting with kind of rough diamonds of different sorts, um, and some who are not diamonds at all. Uh, but, um, you know, it's, it's what also draws, draws them to it. And was one of them. I'm speaking to him, uh, who fought in that same unit with Jordan. Uh, you know, in often very tough combat. That's why they're all pissed as, pissed as, you know, as, as. Uh, uh, drunk, very drunk, sorry, using English levels. That was why they were all very drunk when this fight broke out. They were. Drinking off the stress of a very, very, uh, tough few months of cop deployment to Buckwood.

• 1:58:35Speaker 04

  Um, and yeah, I said to this guy, what, you know, what was it like fighting out there? Um, this other guy was in the unit and he said, yeah, it was, you know, really, really hard going, really tough, you know? And I said, you know, did you find it difficult? He said, yeah, but I fucking loved it. And I think that sums up, you know, the Legion experience, um, in its classic sense for a lot of them, really.

• 1:58:58Jack Murphy?

  And I, I mean, taking it from there, I want to kind of ask you about any concluding thoughts you have um, about, you know, your work, uh, studying and interviewing the foreigners that served in Ukraine and sort of their impact in the war. I, I think at the end of the book, you have an interesting segment where you talk about how, you know, e- e- every single person on the battlefield makes a difference in their own small way. But the foreigners, a- and big picture, were probably not strategically relevant to the overall scheme of the war.

• 1:59:33Speaker 04

  Not enough of them, yeah, that's right, yeah.

• 1:59:35Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:36Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, sure. So, um, uh, I, I, as I say, I, I don't think the numbers ever reached money mu- much more than sort of twenty or thirty thousand, maybe a few more, um, over the, over the years, but tha- that's sort of rough ballpark figure. She's about the same actually as fought in the Spanish Civil War and coincidentally, it's about the same numbers that volunteered to fight for ISIS, as in fighting as jihadists in Iraq and Syria from around the world, which puts it in the sort of, some sort of weird perspective.

• 2:00:07Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:08Speaker 04

  Um, so with, with those sort of numbers, in, in a war with, you know, maybe about half a million competence on either side or possibly more, thirty-five thousand or so, even if it was that many, is not going to make that much of a difference. Where I think the Legion did, uh, make a difference though was just in morale. Uh, Ukrainians, ordinary Ukrainians in the street would see these guys wandering around in, you know, in Ukrainian uniforms, but with these little sort of, um, shoulder badges denoting the fact that they were from the UK or the US or wherever. And it was a huge. You know, it was a sign to a lot of Ukrainians that, you know, the world is with you here. We believe in your cause and, yes, your foreign governments, western governments, might not be sending troops.

• 2:00:51Speaker 04

  They may not, they may not be putting boots on the ground, but their own private citizens are. You know, and they're here not just to hand out aid and deliver, you know, first aid packages and medical stuff. They're actually here to fight and die alongside you. That's a big morale booster, I think. Um, as well as the, you know, the, the, the individual tactical contributions that they made, whether it was experienced US Marines, for example, teaching Ukrainians certain tactical stuff, or whether it was, um, individual groups of volunteers showing metal and initiative on the battlefield, which might often just be like, you know, taking a Russian machine gun position there

• 2:01:33Speaker 04

  or making a good judgment call somewhere else, saying, now, maybe that's gonna be too tough. Stay away from that. That's gonna be too difficult. You know, just sound tactical advice. I think a lot of that percolated through to the Ukrainians over time. Um, but yeah, one of the, I, I think that because you had a lot of bad apples and because they didn't have any huge strategic victories where an individual battalion of legionnaires, um, kind of took a town or village, there weren't many good headlines that Legion generated, really. Unfortunately, a lot of the headlines were about legionnaires killed, legionnaires captured, legionnaires murdered by other legionnaires, et cetera.

• 2:02:14Speaker 04

  And that perhaps did not encourage a, uh, you know, many others to sort of join up or certainly that, that, you know, um, perhaps not as many as might have done. Um, and also the.

• 2:02:28Speaker 06

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• 2:03:56Speaker 04

  The logistics around the Legion were pretty poor in terms of people coming in, you know, and not sort of, you know, the recruitment system was poor, the, the, the system to actually get them chartered out to the front was lousy and so on. And I do make the point in the book that if they'd had a better recruitment system and sort of order mastering system and everything else, if it's just been better organized, you might have had far more Legioners coming in. This is something I'd be interested in your opinion on, actually. Because I know you've discussed people like outfits like

• 2:04:36Speaker 04

  Dying Core and Blackwater a lot on the podcasts in the past. My sort of theory, or one of the theories I advance in the book is that if the West had been able to provide some sort of logistical support for the Legion along the lines of a Dying Core or a Blackwater training group, that could have trained the Legioners in the same way as they trained up the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police or the Afghan Army. And tha- that could have been done, you know, in Ukraine if needs be, I think, or if need be elsewhere. And it could have been done on a private basis. That might have made a lot of difference because a lot of

• 2:05:16Jack Murphy?

  Uh, Putin.

• 2:05:17Speaker 04

  Bruising experiences.

• 2:05:18Jack Murphy?

  You, you know, Putin got to have his little green men. Why can't we have ours?

• 2:05:23Speaker 04

  Exactly, yeah, yeah. Um, uh, I mean, do, do you think, I, I mean, that there is a political difficulty with it in that the, the British and American governments, for example, might feel that it was a step too far. Uh, that it was ta- I mean, it was one step off training troops. Um, but I mean, you know, they were sending in heavy weaponry. They were sending in, you know, they, they were training Ukrainians in their own countries. We have Ukrainian training facilities here in the UK. They were doing everything short of that. And so in some ways, things quite beyond that with the, with the heavy missiles and everything. Um, do you think that somewhere like Dainkor or um, Blackwater would have

• 2:06:00Speaker 04

  taken on something like that? Or do you think it would have been hard to get, uh, um, you know, PMC's to take on such a thing?

• 2:06:09Jack Murphy?

  I think, yeah, you, you could probably, the, the thing with private military companies in the United States is that they don't really engage in offensive combat operations. Um, we don't really have that so much. We have intelligence contractors, we have logistical contractors, security contractors that do mobile and static security for diplomats and so on. But we don't have like, uh, executive outcomes. That, you know, the South Africans that fought in Angola and Sierra Leone, and they really took the fight to the enemy and didn't take any shit at all. Um, we, we don't really have an equivalent of that. Um, and I guess the question is, should we have something like that? And maybe, maybe we.

• 2:06:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. I, I don't even think you'd need the equivalent of that though, because what this would be for would be for the training and

• 2:06:59Jack Murphy?

  Right. It would be, it would be a Ukrainian unit with military.

• 2:07:03Speaker 04

  To the Ukrainian military units, yeah.

• 2:07:05Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 2:07:06Speaker 04

  Um, so you wouldn't necessarily need the organizers at the, you know, at the sharp end, a bit like what you, it would have pre- pretty much the same model as you'd. have in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• 2:07:16Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 2:07:16Speaker 04

  Just doing the large scale sort of public sector, the large scale security sector training, yeah.

• 2:07:23Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I, I think that in, in the United States at least, and to a lesser extent, Western Europe. I think we're, we were and we are a victim of, you know, seventy, seventy-five years of analysis of the Soviet Union and Russia. That turned out to be wrong in a lot of ways, and we had all these theories about escalation ladders and we're gonna do this and then they'll do that. I mean, I think in retrospect, we probably should have just thrown up a no-fly zone over Ukraine the day of the invasion. And they're like, no, like, no, this is unacceptable. And call Putin, call him out. I mean, as we know, the Russians only respond when you punch them in the nose and tell them, no.

• 2:08:07Jack Murphy?

  Like, that's not acceptable.

• 2:08:09Speaker 04

  Well, that certainly, there was a lot of Ukrainians asking about that at the beginning of the war.

• 2:08:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:14Speaker 04

  I mean, I would have said that even that was, that would have been riskier than.

• 2:08:18Jack Murphy?

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:19Speaker 04

  What I'm sort of, what I sort of explore in the, in the last chapter of the book. And also, I mean, it would have been valuable for the, you know, the Brits, for the, for the Western forces, because you'd have had loads of people going out there and gaining firsthand experience of what it was actually like to fight against the Russians, which would be, you know, which would be extremely useful. And I think it would have probably attracted a far, you know, potentially far more soldiers, you know, into the Ukrainian, you know, military fold. Because there'd be a lot of people who probably like US, including serving US military soldiers, they might have had to, you know,

• 2:09:02Speaker 04

  take a sabbatical of some sort, who would say that, you know, a few, three months fighting in Ukraine on the front lines is worth several years of training back home. I mean, it, it strikes me as a little bit of a failure of imagination. I can think of all sorts of good reasons why it wouldn't happen. But that, that's always the case when you get a war. There's always people who are gonna say, we can't do this for reasons A, B, and C. And often, it's, it's when people kind of find a reason around that, that you get a breakthrough.

• 2:09:32Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:09:33Speaker 04

  I'm interested to see, you know, I. I've not sort of found anybody who's who's really sort of been able to sort of argue the the ins and outs of this one. I'd be interested to see if any of your listeners have a reason to say, no, sorry, Paul, that wouldn't work, you know, which there may well be, but it it it seems a bit like a missed opportunity to me, I must say. And I I do remember there's a guy in the book who I quote, who sort of says, he was a former US Army soldier, I think, who unfortunately was actually killed out in Ukraine. And he says, you know, it surprises me they're not fuck tons of guys from West Point out here just learning the ropes. Um, uh, you know, you know, he was amazed that Legion was as small as it was. I don't think it's a telling point.

• 2:10:20Jack Murphy?

  So the book, for people who want to read it, I highly recommend it, is The Mad and the Brave. It's a story of Ukraine's Foreign Legion. Available now, you can find it in bookshops or on Amazon, wherever you want to go. Colin, what's uh, what's the next book? What are you working on now?

• 2:10:40Speaker 04

  Oh, uh, no idea. I sort of, I've done, I think I've done three before. I've done one about my time in Iraq, one about being kidnapped in Somalia, another one about some other people being kidnapped in Somalia. I have no idea. Books do not grow on trees where I know, you know, where I'm from, sadly. Um, I I I often think I would like to do another one on the Ukrainian Legion, because every time I meet a Legionnaire, even if it's just for a five minute conversation, they always tell me something that happened to them on the battlefield that makes you think, that makes you think, Jesus Christ, I could have got a chapter in the book out of that. I wish I'd met you before. You know, that's on the basis of a five minute conversation.

• 2:11:20Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I think you should.

• 2:11:21Speaker 04

  Millions, million and one stories still to be, uh, to be written about the Legion. My one basically was kind of written to deadline to to make sure it came out early. Uh, so, you know, you, you, I I would not necessarily claim the stories I've done are necessarily the the the most thrilling stories that the Legionnaires have out there, but maybe the history books will will give them. Maybe I'll do another, we'll see.

• 2:11:47Jack Murphy?

  That'd be great. And where can people find you online? Do you have a website or social media or anything?

• 2:11:53Speaker 04

  The easiest way to reach me is on my Twitter feed, which I'm also on Blue Sky B or whatever it's called, the other one. It's ColinFreeman99, sorry, at, pardon me, at ColinFreeman99 is my Twitter feed. And also, to be honest, if you Google me, you'll see me, see the book and my Telegraph homepage. I'm fairly easy to find you. And I can also be found at [email protected], which is my generic Telegraph email. I do check my email and my Twitter feed pretty regularly and my, and my, what do you call it, spam?

• 2:12:35Speaker 04

  So yeah, if anybody ever wants to get in touch, feel free to, yeah. And thank you to anyone out there who's, who's listening. And I hope I haven't made, made too many sort of faux pas or bloopers in terms of my military knowledge.

• 2:12:49Jack Murphy?

  No, no, it was great. And we'll, we'll have links down in the description for all of that stuff that I, where you can go and find Colin and his book. Thank you for joining us tonight, Colin. I really appreciate you taking the time.

• 2:13:01Speaker 04

  Thank you. I enjoyed it, yeah.

• 2:13:03Jack Murphy?

  And everyone else out there, we'll see you guys next time.

• 2:13:08Speaker 04

  Thank you. Good night.

• 2:13:13Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House Podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free. And what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out. The things that are on the Team House, on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On. Things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side. Anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show. And also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis.

• 2:13:57Jack Murphy?

  You can find our newsletter at teamhospodcast.kit.com/join.

• 2:14:04Jack Murphy?

  Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. So we hope to see you.

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• 2:28:22Jack Murphy?

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:28:56Speaker 05

  Looking for a new way to take control of your health? If diet, exercise, and willpower alone haven't gotten you where you want to be, visit OrderlyMedes.com to learn about GLP-1 treatment options. With a convenient virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical providers from home and see if treatment may be appropriate for you. Visit OrderlyMedes.com today. That's OrderlyMedes.com. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:29:26Speaker 00

  Happy Birthday, America! It's time to celebrate and play your favorite Las Vegas casino games by American-owned SpinQuest.com. What's better than fireworks and American Pie? Hitting a blackjack in the palm of your hand, and you won't lose your fingers. Over a thousand games including slots and live dealers. And $30 coin packs are on sale for 10. SpinQuest.com: Buy American Players, For American Players.

• 2:29:51Speaker 01

  SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details.

• 2:29:57Jack Murphy?

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses, like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at OnDeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:30:32Speaker 05

  Ready to feel energized and in control again? At Orderly Medes, we have helped thousands just like you take charge of their health with a GLP-1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a licensed provider about your options. That's what Orderly Medes is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to OrderlyMedes.com. You don't need to visit with a physician in person to become eligible. Orderly Medes has a simple, virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals. who can determine whether a GLP-1 treatment may be appropriate for you wherever you are. Get started from the comfort of home online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best.

• 2:31:15Speaker 05

  Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com. Orderlymeds.com. Gain confidence and choose better habits this fall. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:31:33Speaker 00

  Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on SpinQuest. And there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at SpinQuest.com. S.P.I.N.Q.U.E.S.T. com.

• 2:31:55Speaker 01

  SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details.

• 2:32:02Speaker 02

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:32:38Speaker 06

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At orderlymeds.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:33:09Speaker 00

  Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drinking one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com.

• 2:33:32Speaker 01

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:33:39Jack Murphy?

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:34:15Speaker 06

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At orderlymeds.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:34:45Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Cris Mornings Pumpkin Spice Latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spinquest. They have over 1,000 different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players: A $30 coin package for just 10.

• 2:35:04Speaker 01

  So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit Spinquest.com and download the app today. Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit Spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:35:15Jack Murphy?

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:35:46Speaker 05

  Ready to feel energized and in control again? At Orderly Med's, we have helped thousands just like you take charge of their health with a GLP-1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a licensed provider about your options. That's what Orderly Med's is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to OrderlyMed's.com. You don't need to visit with a physician in person to become eligible. Orderly Med's has a simple, virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether a GLP-1 treatment may be appropriate for you wherever you are. Get started from the comfort of home online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best.

• 2:36:29Speaker 05

  Visit OrderlyMed's.com to learn more. That's OrderlyMed's.com. OrderlyMed's.com. Gain confidence and choose better habits this fall. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:36:46Speaker 00

  Yo, it's Bluff here. I've been giving out king-size candy bars to all the kids all day, and luckily karma was right around the corner. This Halloween, Spinquest is giving away a scary-good deal, $30 for $10 coin pack. They have over 1,000 games available, and with instant cash prize redemptions, there's no waiting like those other schmucks. Don't miss out. Go to Spinquest.com or download the app right now.

• 2:37:09Speaker 01

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit Spinquest.com for more details.