One British volunteer in Ukraine is reported dead and another as requiring brain surgery following a bloody clash with Russian tanks in Donbas.
38-year-old Simon Lingard and an unnamed comrade, both former British paratroopers, were injured during an engagement with a Russian tank column near Bakhmut, the centrepiece of Russian forces’ only major offensive operation at this stage in the Ukraine war.
A two-time veteran of the war in Afghanistan, Lingard is said to have volunteered in Ukraine despite suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and to have operated Javelin anti-tank missile systems.
The third confirmed British fatality in the war, he leaves behind two children and their teens, described as “absolutely distraught” by his wife, Stacey.
His wounded colleague was in a life-threatening condition when he was airlifted to a Ukrainian hospital, according to The Telegraph, and is under guard in case agents of the Kremlin attempt to finish the proverbial job while he is receiving treatment.
The clash in Bakhmut came as Russia suffered another huge reverse in the war, with its forces abandoning Kherson — nominally part of Russian Federation, having been recently annexed after a widely unrecognised referendum — after having previously been routed from the Kharkiv (Kharkov) region and retreating from their northern front in the area of Kyiv (Kiev) prior to that.
The Ukrainian government claims the Russians are “suffer[ing] huge losses but [do] not stop making its attempts” to capture Bakhmut, in an effort “achieve success at least somewhere” to compensate for the “fiasco” in Kherson.
In terms of British involvement in the fighting, volunteers are officially discouraged from travelling to Ukraine — despite initially receiving the backing of then-Foreign Secretary Liz Truss — but the Russians still believe Britain is “too deep” in the conflict more generally, and has even accused the Royal Navy of orchestrating drone attacks on its Black Sea Fleet and the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines to Germany.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.