by Colin Freeman is out now at £22
With US President Donald Trump meeting Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for peace talks in Alaska as this issue approached the presses, the potential for an end to the three-year war in Ukraine was once again on the front pages.
Little had then been revealed about the content of the discussions, although a follow-up conference with European leaders in Washington was also taking place. Away from the political jaw-boning, however, a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives on both sides continued its inexorable course.
Aside from supplying arms and training, Nato states have held back from becoming involved in a war with the very real potential for a nuclear escalation. But the crisis has sucked in thousands of foreign fighters who responded to a call for assistance from Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelenskyy and have been fighting as part of an international legion.
It is these individuals, their backgrounds and motivations that come under scrutiny in the Mad and the Brave. Drawing on interviews with a handful of volunteers from nations including the UK, America and Germany, journalist Colin Freeman shines a light on the make-up of these units, the troops fighting in them and their impact on the war effort.
The story certainly lays bare a few uncomfortable and untold realities. Far from a being a cohort exclusively driven by conviction – although many undoubtedly turned up under a sense of duty – Zelenskyy’s call to arms sucked in a broad church that included fantasists, steroid addicts, video game warriors and other fatally flawed individuals unsuitable for combat in one way or another.
With these misfits mingling with ex-soldiers of genuine pedigree, it is unsurprising – as the book points out – that the selection process was flawed from the outset. Even Afghanistan and Iraq veterans found conventional warfighting – with long-range artillery, missile strikes and a constant drone threat – pushed them to the limits.
A number of the most extraordinary stories in the book, however, take place thousands of miles from theatre in the leafy English countryside. Among them is the tale of a parish councillor, who discovered that cheap Mitsubishi L200 pickups used in farming were the ideal platform for Ukrainian rocket systems.
The tale of the volunteers is – in short – a complicated affair involving some highly unlikely warriors. Of particular interest to current British soldiers are the first-person accounts of a conflict continually changing, especially on the drone front, while descriptions of precision high-velocity missile strikes underscore the importance of dispersal, concealment and rapid movement across the battlespace.
All in all, The Mad and the Brave is a solid piece of journalism and as much a story of human nature as old as war itself. Volunteers have come forward in every conflict, the veteran fighting alongside the fantasist and the noble rubbing shoulders with the vain and self-interested. This book retells the tale in the social media age, and against the backdrop of a conflict that might yet have far deeper implications for us all.
Review: Cliff Caswell, Soldier
