Insider was unable to confirm his whereabouts, but his LinkedIn profile shows he's still working for the legion, in a different department. Miroshnichenko has since been fired from his post as the battalion's commander, Julia said. Instead, she was informed by Young's daughter, who had seen the news on Facebook. Julia also said she never found out about Young's death from official channels. When Miroshnichenko called Julia to discuss funeral arrangements on the phone, the commander sounded drunk, she said. At one point, Young's battalion destroyed a local bar, and the police had to get involved, Julia says. They also claimed that Miroshnichenko was a heavy drinker who often encouraged others to drink before going out on missions. "Ruslan has pissed off everyone in the company, especially the Ukrainians. "No one trusts Ruslan, he is a lying piece of shit," one soldier told Julia in a text message seen by Insider. Messages sent to her from soldiers in Young's unit - seen by Insider - reveal that many thought their commander, Ruslan Miroshnichenko, was reckless and often drunk. Julia told Insider she believed Young's death was preventable. The 51-year-old's machine gun, which he had named after Julia, was by his side. The first blast injured Luke "Skywalker" Lusyszyn, another US citizen and medic who had accompanied the battalion that day.ĭuring a brief pause in the firing, Young, and two other soldiers - Emile-Antoine Roy Sirous from Canada and Edvard Selander Patrignani from Sweden - rushed to his side to evacuate him before they too were killed. Ukrainian soldiers and foreign fighters boarding a vehicle on the frontline in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on June 27.Īs the men went to find cover in an underground cellar, Russian troops targeted them with artillery fire, AJ said. Still, the legion appeared anything but professional. Rekawek added that soldiers in this section were often highly skilled and deployed in smaller groups that operate right on the front. "The GUR part of the legion is led by Ukrainian officers and usually includes veterans or people who have experience on the battlefield," Kacper Rekawek, a research fellow for the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, told Insider. Young was a part of the 517th Battalion of the Ivan Bohun Brigade, which was overseen by the GUR Legion, run by Ukrainian intelligence. 'I knew someone was going to die'Īfter Young's arrival in Ukraine, Julia said, she received concerning messages from him complaining about a lack of organization and equipment in the legion, adding that much was done "like in the old days." About 3,000 of them were US citizens, a top defense official at the embassy in Washington, DC, said in March.Ī representative for one branch of the legion, which Young was not part of, told Insider that since the start of the war they'd had a "steady influx of people" coming in but that it had fluctuated depending on the time of year. In total, almost 20,000 legionnaires from 52 nations answered the call to arms in the first weeks of the war, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said at the time. Some came with extensive combat experience, having fought in countries such as Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan, while others came with nothing more than a burning desire to defend a country in need. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the formation of the international legion on February 27, thousands lined up to volunteer outside Ukrainian embassies worldwide. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on March 10. The 51-year-old served as a US infantryman between November 1990 and April 2003, before being forced to retire because of injury.Īfter a lonely two years in lockdown, the news of a war in Ukraine - only a few thousand miles away - gave Young a new sense of purpose.īut joining the fight against Russia would plunge the former infantryman into a scary new reality. Young traveled to Kyiv, via the Turkish city of Istanbul, in March - roughly a month after Russia's invasion of Ukraine started on February 24. "I didn't even have an opportunity just to say goodbye," she added. "I told him that I absolutely don't understand why he should do it," she said. The 51-year-old Army veteran from California said he needed to go because it was his duty to protect the free world, Julia told Insider in a series of interviews. When Julia* called her partner Bryan Young, she was shocked to find that he was already on his way to Ukraine.Ī week earlier, the pair, who lived in Tbilisi, Georgia, got into a heated argument after Young said he wanted to go to Ukraine to defend the country from a full-scale Russian invasion. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |