SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Near­ly 20,000 for­eign vol­un­teers have signed up to fight in war-torn Ukraine against Rus­sia’s in­va­sion.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ac­tivist and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant Bri­an Stone is one of the vol­un­teer com­bat­ants who is now pre­pared to bat­tle side-by-side with Ukraini­ans for free­dom against Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Puttin’s in­vad­ing army.

Stone will be T&T’s first vol­un­teer to fight in Ukraine’s front­line if he achieves his goal.

“This de­ci­sion did not come from the brain but from my heart,” Stone ad­mit­ted in a tele­phone in­ter­view to Guardian Me­dia.

“So far, it is a go. You have to look at it for what it is.”

Know­ing ful­ly well that any­thing can hap­pen dur­ing his in­tend­ed month’s stay, Stone, who served in the Cana­di­an armed forces re­serves, has al­ready put con­tin­gen­cies in place.

“I un­der­stand very clear­ly the risks. I am not stu­pid. If Russ­ian sol­diers show up there we will have to fight. I am pre­pared to do so. The on­ly thing I am fear­ful of is if shots are fired, there are ex­plo­sions or should a bomb drop. I hope I can han­dle it. I have al­ready signed over a num­ber of things to my wife.”

He knows if he los­es his life in Ukraine, he will not be cov­ered by his in­sur­ance pol­i­cy.

Stone ad­mit­ted his de­ci­sion is not sit­ting well with his im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly and close friends but more so his wor­ried wife.

“My wife is not hap­py at all,” he sighed.

“Even a sol­dier would be ly­ing if they say they are not afraid. I fear the un­seen. There is no way I can cov­er from an ex­plo­sion. I am wor­ried about that. If it turns to most­ly a gueril­la war­fare...well, it is over for peo­ple like me. I will have to leave. To stay you will get killed.”

Should he die do­ing vol­un­teerism work, Stone knows his body will al­so not re­turn to his fam­i­ly.

“Let the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment dis­pose of it. That is what they will do any­way.”

Stone, who is a dual cit­i­zen of T&T and Cana­da, is hop­ing to de­part in two weeks.

Hav­ing no war­fare skills and with age and strength al­ready against him, Stone said the Ukrain­ian army may not put him on the front­line to fight.

When Stone en­ters the Ukrain­ian min­istry of de­fence base, he will be as­sessed and as­signed to a des­ig­nat­ed area.

“I will prob­a­bly be giv­en a part of a city, hope­ful­ly, more in the west­ern end where the Rus­sians are not 100 per cent there yet. But I will have to go where they put me,” the busi­ness­man said.

Fol­low­ing weeks of bru­tal bom­bard­ments and airstrikes in Kyiv, which have led to grow­ing deaths, in­juries and thou­sands of cit­i­zens flee­ing, Stone has made up his mind to bat­tle Rus­sia’s armed forces, who con­tin­ue to wreak hav­oc on Ukraini­ans and build­ings.

The hu­man­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine’s cap­i­tal con­tin­ues to de­cline rapid­ly and some cities have reached cat­a­stroph­ic pro­por­tions.

The on­go­ing war­fare trig­gered Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­sky ear­li­er this month to ap­peal for vol­un­teers in for­eign coun­tries with com­bat­ive skills to give a help­ing hand. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 fight­ers from 52 coun­tries have come for­ward.

“So far, I think I am the on­ly Trinida­di­an go­ing there. I did some check­ing and found no one,” Stone said.

How­ev­er, Za­len­sky’s call for help was not Stone’s mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor.

Stone was pushed to en­rol for the bat­tle­front when he saw on tele­vi­sion an in­no­cent child be­ing mur­dered by Russ­ian sol­diers and the Ukrain­ian sol­diers putting guns in the hands of moth­ers and the el­der­ly to de­fend their coun­try.

An­oth­er rea­son is to help Ukraini­ans free them­selves from tyran­ny and to re­turn to T&T with that ex­pe­ri­ence and spir­it in de­fence of this coun­try’s democ­ra­cy.

“I val­ue democ­ra­cy...the prin­ci­ples that a gov­ern­ment must serve the will of the peo­ple, which con­nects to what is hap­pen­ing and the con­cerns and is­sues I have with our Gov­ern­ment that ex­ists right now. I feel the peo­ple are not be­ing served...that our democ­ra­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and free­doms are be­ing tres­passed.”

Stone, who lost a defama­tion law­suit against Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in 2020 and was or­dered to pay $350,000, be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment is be­com­ing “more au­thor­i­tar­i­an, which I see as a threat. I am al­so con­cerned with what’s hap­pen­ing in Trinidad, es­pe­cial­ly with what is go­ing on with the Nico­las Maduro and Iraq al­liances.”

Stone has al­ready reg­is­tered as a vol­un­teer with the Ukrain­ian Em­bassy in the Unit­ed King­dom and was in­formed of what com­bat gears he needs to walk with. These in­clude a bul­let­proof vest and hel­met and a laser scope, which is a de­vice at­tached to a firearm to aid tar­get ac­qui­si­tion. A sleep­ing bag, win­ter clothes and night-vi­sion gog­gles are al­so re­quired.

“The body ar­mour is ex­pen­sive. It is about US$1,200 to $1,400 a plate. I need two plates. The tick­ets are about US$5,000.”

In prepa­ra­tion for any even­tu­al­i­ty, Stone will reg­is­ter for a two-day tac­ti­cal course in Flori­da on his way to Ukraine.

Stone’s ex­pens­es are es­ti­mat­ed at US$12,000, some of which he has al­ready raised through the gen­eros­i­ty of fam­i­ly, friends and well-wish­ers. He is hop­ing more do­na­tions will pour in.

“For my safe haven, I must have a con­tin­gency fund. If I get in­jured, Ukraine is prob­a­bly not go­ing to han­dle it. I would have to get to a Pol­ish hos­pi­tal...I would need some cash. All I need to get is the fund­ing in place so I can buy my tick­et, gears, do the tac­ti­cal course and have the re­serve cash on me and I am gone.”

Stone promised his fam­i­ly he would not stay be­yond 30 days.

“I am not go­ing for a long time be­cause I can’t af­ford it. A month there is a long time. The war could be over by then.”

Should the con­flict in­ten­si­fy, Stone says he will flee.

“If it be­comes a sit­u­a­tion where the Rus­sians are bomb­ing the hell out of the west and peo­ple are get­ting killed, I can go to some peo­ple who live at the Pol­ish bor­der where I can safe­ly stay.”

Keep­ing his fin­gers crossed that all goes well, an op­ti­mistic Stone said, “I will be back. I know I will be back...God’s will­ing.”