The Brits can have a nice big cup of STFU, with their 24/7 propagandizing of the war.
Sit and spin, Liz Truss.
https://tass.com/politics/1473521 (Russian news)
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-recruiting-foreign-fighters/31737766.html (older but makes an important point no one is talking about)
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US-Mercenaries-in-Custody-Reveal-Corruption-in-Ukrainian-Army-20220620-0001.html
-------
There is a problem here.
Traditionally, our intel services identify who is traveling abroad to fight and law enforcement intercepts them. The Department of State sets up obstacles and we do not make it easy for someone.
However, this is different.
Our Department of State recommended against it (whatever BS that is) but essentially did nothing to stop folks going there. The primary route was via Poland.
Our intel and law enforcement didn't stop folks either.
But it gets worse.
The Ukraine was basically advertising online for mercenaries, at one point on their state department equivalents website in those foreign countries where they knew they might be able to attract mercenaries. They were so bold and open about this that Austria asked them to stop it: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/ukraine-konflikt-oesterreich-untersagt-die-anwerbung-von-soldaten-18037232.html (The article is Austria demanding Ukraine cease online recruitment through their embassy).
And yes, Ukraine had folks from all over, including Brazil, the US, Germany, UK, Austria: https://exxpress.at/die-liste-des-kremls-5-oesterreicher-kaempfen-fuer-ukraine-2-bereits-tot/ (2 of the 5 known Austrians fighting there are known to be dead).
Then there is yet another issue. Who really paid for these mercenaries? You can say Ukraine did, but that would be a little disingenuous. We gave Ukraine money, gobs and gobs of it and they turned around and hired mercenaries, to the tune of >6,000 of them.
Finally, you have Western governments and our MSM in lockstep essentially "propagandizing" in this war, painting one side as entirely wrong, the other as entirely right. Instead of neutrality and objectivity, because we stood to gain and were a party to it, we were a belligerent (frankly we started this war), and we were telling the masses about the plight of the poor Ukraine at the hands of the evil Russians (got folks stirred up no different than in the Middle East with the Arabs).
So the question now is, do we as a society and do our governments (all of the Western cheerleaders for this war) have a responsibility towards these people where we pumped their head full of shit, let them go there, and where we essentially were paying for them (but of course our government created some insulation and plausible deniability for that last issue)?
If they had had this super-baby to defend them, they never woudla been captured
A future chuck norris!
https://gab.com/EpochBright/posts/108600754289799335
Until very recently, I was an IC/PMI for a governemt client. I have a lot of friends in the business who were - mostly jokingly -forwarding ads fron headhunters looking for people to go to Ukraine.
We all laughed. Nobody I know or know of would touch it. The money was *outstanding*, but nobody who's been in the biz is THAT dumb.
The occasional guys I've seen in reports doing it (or getting caught or killed) look like scrubs and d-bags. Nobody knows any of them.
The Brits can have a nice big cup of STFU, with their 24/7 propagandizing of the war.
Sit and spin, Liz Truss.
Now that's rich. How about you don't let your subjects go to fight wars as mercenaries? And if they do get captured you might negotiate as your own sovereign nation on their behalf, rather than trust one of the most corrupt governments in the world that was glad to use your subjects as gullible cannon fodder, to negotiate for their release.
I am reading all posts with interest without commenting on a sad situation.