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‘A whole bunch’ of Western volunteers who fought the Islamic State in Syria at the moment are on the entrance strains in Ukraine, DailyMail.com can reveal.
People, Brits and Canadians are amongst a number of fighters who’ve once more determined to danger their lives for a international individuals on the entrance strains of a brutal conflict.
Some have change into official members of the Ukrainian army, others are volunteer fight medics – and lots of say they felt compelled to assist in the face of what they declare was inaction from the West.
In unique interviews, a British and an American medic stated they’ve arrange a brand new ‘Nightingale Squadron’, delivery medical provides and educating frontline first-aiders how one can use them.
A 35-year-old British former banker who goes by the pseudonym Macer Gifford volunteered in Syria from 2014 alongside the Kurdish pressure or YPG, later named the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
He stated he arrange a unit there that ferried about 700 casualties to hospital, together with from the bitter preventing across the siege of ISIS’s final stronghold in Raqqa, and skilled round 600 individuals in battlefield assist.
British former banker Macer Gifford, 35 (left) and Tennessee-based US Military veteran Brennan Philips (proper) have volunteered to type a ‘Nightingale Squadron’, offering medical provides to Ukrainian army amid Russia’s invasion
The liberty preventing volunteers stocked their armored Land Rover with 170 first assist kits and ‘tens of hundreds of {dollars} value of kit’ to donate to Ukrainian forces
American Brennan Philips, who beforehand volunteered in Syria, is seen delivering a rousing speech to Ukrainian troopers in video shared with DailyMail.com
Now he has traveled to the frontlines in Ukraine, driving an armored Land Rover filled with 170 first assist kits and ‘tens of hundreds of {dollars} value of kit’, purchased with donations.
‘Folks thought internationalism had died a loss of life. Now I imagine it is come again,’ he stated.
‘I have been really amazed by the individuals who have gone out to Syria. And it doesn’t shock me in any respect that of these those who went to Syria, about 70 per cent of them have since ended up in Ukraine.
‘There’s probably tons of of individuals in Ukraine now that had been in Syria and Iraq. I do know a minimum of 20 of them myself personally,’ he added. ‘It is simply an honor to be part of it.
‘The urgency by which the Ukrainian individuals have known as for assist, it genuinely moved me. And the identical feeling that I felt earlier than going to Syria is identical feeling I am getting now.’
One among Gifford’s former SDF comrades and fellow Brit, Aiden Aslin, was captured by Russian forces after a 45-day siege in Mariupol, within the southeast area of Donbass, Ukraine.
‘The final we heard from Aiden was that he was surrounded, he had run out of ammunition, he had run out of meals,’ stated Gifford, including that he and his unit of Ukrainian marines had been pressured to give up.
‘Mariupol is precisely what occurred in Raqqa and Mosul: an intense avenue to avenue battle. There have been snipers in every single place. There have been explosives IDs in every single place. Tanks had been actually battling within the streets, and other people had been dying and being left the place they fall,’ he stated.
Final month Aslin, 28, was marched out on Kremlin state TV with a giant purple mark on his brow and a swollen eye, days after his unit surrendered.
Philips and Gifford have additionally been offering coaching, together with CASEVAC (casualty evacation) coaching to Ukrainian forces (pictured)
Brennan Philips (pictured in Syria) a former cavalry scout who was deployed to Iraq whereas serving in 2005, advised DailyMail.com he joined the SDF partially due to guilt over America’s ‘hasty and disorganized withdrawal’ from the area that he believes helped ISIS’ rise.
He beforehand spent ten months in Iraq preventing ISIS alongside the YPG and different Western volunteers.
Upon his return to Britain in 2016, he was arrested on suspicion of terror expenses however was acquitted and returned to Iraq for a second tour of responsibility with the YPG.
Identified by his social media alias Cossack Gundi, he moved to Ukraine in 2018 after falling in love with a lady from Mykolaiv and joined the nation’s armed forces.
For weeks Aslin had been preventing Russian forces in Mariupol as a completely paid member of Ukraine’s military, however surrendered to the invaders two days in the past after his group ran out of provides and ammunition following 48 days of battle in and across the besieged port metropolis.
Philips and Gifford’s ‘Nightingale Squadron’ automobile
A video obtained by DailyMail.com reveals his final message, describing his unit’s predicament hours earlier than he was taken as a prisoner of conflict by the Russians.
‘Every day that he is in Russian palms is a fear for us. The longer it goes on, the more serious it will be for him,’ his brother, Nathan Wooden, advised DailyMail.com from the household’s residence in Nottingham, England.
‘It is a race in opposition to time actually to get him again in Ukraine or Britain.’
One other Brit, Shaun Pinner, 48, served with Aslin within the Ukrainian forces’ thirty sixth Marine Brigade and has additionally been captured and paraded on Russian state TV.
Gifford stated volunteering for international wars was nothing new – pointing to the ‘hundreds of Brits, People and Europeans’ who joined rebels preventing the fascist regime of Francisco Franco in Spain final century, and People who volunteered within the Eagles squadrons within the UK’s Royal Air Pressure earlier than the US joined the conflict in opposition to the Nazis.
The Nightingale Squadron has been gathering additional donations on-line to purchase extra medical provides to resupply the beleaguered Ukrainian residents’ brigades
The volunteers have been delivery medical provides and educating frontline first-aiders how one can use them
Some volunteers stated they felt compelled to assist in the face of what they declare was inaction from the West. Pictured: Containers of medical and army provides
‘For me, going out to Syria, preventing alongside the Kurds in opposition to ISIS was an act of political solidarity. I am a humanitarian, I imagine in democracy,’ he stated.
‘What we had been confronted in Syria, was a menace in opposition to the very survival of the communities there.
‘Ukraine has received a lot potential as a rustic, it is such a good looking place. And what they want now could be Britain, America – in reality, all of the world’s assist in defeating Russia.’
Gifford stated he’s gathering additional donations to his fundraiser web page to purchase extra medical provides to resupply the beleaguered Ukrainian residents’ brigades.
Brennan Philips, a Tennessee-based US Military veteran, volunteered alongside Gifford in Syria and has joined him once more to arrange the Nightingale Squadron in Ukraine.
Philips, a former cavalry scout who was deployed to Iraq whereas serving in 2005, advised DailyMail.com he joined the SDF partially due to guilt over America’s ‘hasty and disorganized withdrawal’ from the area that he believes helped ISIS’ rise.
He revealed that the battle in Ukraine will not be the primary time he can have confronted down Russian troopers – after an in depth shave with alleged Spetsnaz (Russian particular forces) in Syria.
Whereas on a mission to construct an alliance with a Syrian Arab Military pressure in Qamishli, close to the border with Turkey, he stated he was ambushed by Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen and Spetsnaz officers.
‘They had been in disguise in UN autos,’ he stated. ‘They pulled round in a van. Spetsnaz opened a aspect door, and a digital camera popped out of the highest and began filming us.
‘I known as the fixer. I stated, I do not care the way you get us out of right here, however get us out of right here.’
Gifford – pictured with Ukrainian troopers, certainly one of whom wished to cover his id – stated he isn’t stunned that a lot of his fellow Western volunteers in Syria have ended up in Ukraine
That evening, Philips stated, a bomb on the again of a moped was detonated in entrance of a close-by café, killing seven civilians – and Russian TV was broadcasting footage of them saying they had been ‘CIA brokers’ chargeable for the bombing.
‘It was a style of who the Russians are and the way they function,’ he stated.
Philips, 36, stated that the Russians had been already placing out ‘disinformation’ about his captured buddy Aslin, claiming he was preventing alongside the neo-Nazi Azov battalion.
In truth, Aslin was preventing with the thirty sixth brigade of Ukrainian marines which he formally joined in 2018.
Different disinformation consists of the supposed seize of an American ‘mercenary’ – when in reality a Russian soldier simply discovered the passport of a US volunteer who’s now secure in Poland, in keeping with his household.
A video posted on Fb reveals an alleged Chechen soldier gloating that they captured the American, whose household requested that he stay nameless.
The Chechen confirmed his passport to the digital camera and claimed the person is a ‘US particular providers consultant’ and ‘engaged on Donbas territory’.
‘They assist destroy the civilian inhabitants,’ a translation with the video stated. ‘And someone has an issue with us Chechens? These are the individuals able to battle till the final Ukrainian. They’ll all discover their orphanage right here within the Ukrainian land.’
Philips stated he fought alongside Aslin, 28, in Syria earlier than the Brit moved to Ukraine in 2018 to be together with his Ukrainian fiancée, and was one of many final individuals to talk to the captured soldier.
He stated although Aslin’s unit put up an unbelievable protection, now Mariupol has fallen it is going to be close to unimaginable to retake.
One among Gifford’s former SDF comrades and fellow Brit, Aiden Aslin, was captured by Russian forces after a 45-day siege in Mariupol, within the southeast area of Donbass, Ukraine
For weeks Aslin had been preventing Russian forces in Mariupol as a completely paid member of Ukraine’s military
‘Mariupol is within the European steppes. It is flat wheat fields throughout. There are not any avenues of method that you are able to do stealthily and undetected. And working in city terrain is the worst,’ he stated.
‘And we’re coping with an enemy who doesn’t care about placing an ambulance, killing Crimson Cross staff, or placing youngsters’s hospitals.’
In his interview, Philips begged fellow Westerners to battle what he claimed was a ‘realized helplessness’ and ‘fatalism’, including that ‘wherever you are at, no matter you do, you are able to do one thing’ to assist the Ukrainians.
And in a livid message to the Russian individuals, he added: ‘to Russian residents, you are fascist now.’
‘It is a humiliation for one to say that they’re Russian on the worldwide stage due to the actions, not of the Russian individuals, however of your management, of Putin himself,’ he stated.
‘The one individuals who can change that’s you… Nobody desires World Conflict Three.
‘You all do have the ability to vary it.’
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