The situation in Ukraine doesn’t seem to be getting any better at the moment, but mass panic has apparently broken out in the UK’s Ministry Of Defence after it transpired that four of our soldiers have gone AWOL to head over to Ukraine to help against the invading Russian forces. The MOD aren’t panicking because they’re worried about their lives or anything, but more because they’re worried that Putin will think that Britain has officially entered the war if they end up getting captured. Go figure.
Featured Image VIA
One of the four soldiers is reportedly a 19 year old member of the Coldstream Guardsman who wrote a goodbye letter to his parents and headed off to Poland with intentions to cross the border, before uploading a picture of his boots to his Snapchat. A friend of the teenager said the following:
He’s gone absent without leave, bought a ticket and he’s on his way to Ukraine to fight in the war.
You don’t join the Army to stand in bear skin hats and march about. You join it to fight and see action. He probably thinks he could do some good out there but it’s a very misguided decision.
‘Join it to see some action’ doesn’t sound that promising does it? Kinda makes it sound like this guy is a psycho who couldn’t wait to get out there as soon as he heard the war was starting.
Like his friend says though, that seems like a very misguided decision and will likely end up in his death and perhaps even more far reaching political concerns for the UK. Hardly a win-win, but I suppose you have to respect the guy for heading over there and fighting rather than just sticking a Ukraine flag on his profile picture.
The identity of the other three soldiers that have made the trip haven’t been revealed yet either, but the Ministry Of Defence released the following statement saying that soldiers shouldn’t be heading over to the Ukraine under any circumstances:
All service personnel are prohibited from travelling to Ukraine until further notice.
This applies whether the service person is on leave or not. Personnel travelling to Ukraine will face disciplinary and administrative consequences.
Really doubling down there, but I suppose the UK government is pretty scared of Russia with all the money from the country that seems to be tied up here and doesn’t want to be seen to joining the war effort against them under any circumstances. The MoD is apparently desperately trying to intercept the four soldiers before they make it into Ukraine which sounds like a wonderful use of their resources at this time.
Not that four UK soldiers are going to make more of a difference – even if they’re green berets or whatever – but you would think that the MOD could do something to actually help Ukraine like the rest of Europe rather than worry about saving their own skin. We’ll see where this goes.
For more of the same, check out this Ukrainian man getting bombed whilst on Instagram. Grim.
