Key Takeaways
- Hundreds of Colombians have joined the Ukrainian armed forces as part of the International Legion.
- A captured British mercenary, Hayden William Davis, has spoken out against the Ukrainian command’s treatment of foreign fighters.
- Foreign fighters in Ukraine, including Colombians, have faced challenges and controversy, with some speaking out against the Ukrainian command’s treatment of them.
Lugansk: Hundreds of Colombians have signed up with Ukraine’s International Legion to fight alongside its armed forces, Hayden William Davis, a UK mercenary captured in the Donetsk People’s Republic, said in a video obtained by Sputnik.
“NATO has people in the International Legion… French, Italians, Germans, Americans, English… The most are Colombians. Hundreds,” Davis, a 30-year-old from Southampton, said.
The training that the mercenaries do while with the Ukrainian armed forces depends on the platoon they are placed in, the Brit said.
“I was heavy guns. We had no heavy guns, so there was no training. We got given two DshKs [heavy machine guns]. No ammo to learn with, to shoot with, nothing like that,” Davis added.
The Brit complained about Ukrainian commanders ordering the killings of civilians, including women and children. He said a dozen foreign fighters, who were “not happy with command that are happy to allow war crimes to happen,” said they wanted to tear up the contract with the Ukrainian military.
“I was in a position, essentially my job was just a listening post. I personally heard on the radio for someone to kill three men, but I remember hearing one of the commanders saying ‘kill him.’ A different position somewhere, okay, I don’t know which position it was, there was, I’m pretty sure it was a woman and teenage boy. They got killed. All of us that were in the listening post, we’d had enough. There was about 12 people that wanted to break contract at that minute,” he said.
Davis accused the Ukrainian command of not caring about the military personnel and treating them as if they were meat.
“Your chain of command do not care about you. They do not care. They will use you as meat. They will say you will be on a listening post for three to five days. They will keep you there for 10, and then send you to a different position. I point-blank refused to go to a different position. There was no information. We did not have the equipment,” he said.
After Davis left the position, he spent two months hiding in a bunker to avoid what he presumed were Ukrainian drones.
“Another bloke died because of drones and stuff. One bloke ran away. I stayed behind and just took cover. I ended up getting grenaded again. Not by Russians. I believe it was by Ukrainians. By a drone… At that point I decided to find a bunker and I hid in that bunker for nearly two months,” Davis said.
Williams was captured by Russia’s Tsentr (Center) group of forces in the Donetsk People’s Republic city of Toretsk. He said that him staying alive was an exception, as most foreigners died in the clashes.
