British man who travelled to Ukraine to fight against Russia flees back home, calling fight a ‘suicide mission’

Mar 18, 2022 Malawi24 Reporter Politics 1

As Malawians contemplate flying to Ukraine to fight against Russia for a $2000 (Over 2 million Malawi Kwacha) daily paycheque, a Briton who had joined the the fight has run back to his home country while calling the fight a “suicide mission”.

The 36-year-old, Ben Spann who hails from Warwickshire told local media he spent five days in a safe house in western Ukraine with four ex-British soldiers – and at one point had a gun pointed at his head after the property was searched by a group of “Ukrainian SWAT team”.

“They stayed at a ‘tiny’ safe house which had no beds or running water in western Ukraine with several other volunteers”, reports Sky News.

Mr Spann said it felt like he had walked “into a crack den” despite early promise for transport which did not transpire.

“One evening 10 members of a Ukrainian SWAT team stormed in. One of our snipers who opened the door got pinned back into the wall opposite him by two ballistic shields.

“We sat there with AK-47s pointed at our heads for 20-30 minutes, with our hands on our heads, whilst they searched everywhere, and we were being sort of interrogated”, he told Sky News.

The Brit says he thought the prospect of travelling to Ukraine without weapons “a suicide mission”.

He returned to the UK after less than 10 days in Ukraine – with a failed mission.

In retrospective, he says he regrets leaving the war-torn country.

Meanwhile, several Malawians have shown interests in the daily offer to join the Russian-Ukrainian war following a promise that foreign nationalities will get citizenship and US$2 thousand (over 2 million Malawi Kwacha) as daily allowance.

While Malawi has condemned Russia for the the invasion of Ukrainian, the country has not committed to sending peacekeepers.

Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, has said the Kremlin’s special military mission in Ukraine is going effectively as planned.

However, the invasion of Ukraine, launched on 24 February 2022, has been condemned by several countries and international blocs such the European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United Nations (UN).

Countries continue to sanction Russia as businesses withdraw their operations from the country. Assets and other properties of several Russian billionaires have been frozen world-over.