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A British volunteer fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Russia has said that soldiers on the ground feel that Friday’s summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska is “a joke” and will not lead to peace.
Drew Scott, a former British soldier who joined Ukraine’s International Legion in 2023, told The Independent that Ukrainian soldiers were “in it for the long haul” and not anticipating an imminent resolution to the conflict.
Trump and Putin will meet face to face for the first time in seven years on Friday at a summit in Alaska, but Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky will not be present. Kyiv maintains that it will not cede any occupied land to Russia as part of a peace agreement.
“We know what ceasefires look like from the Russian side. Their mentality is to just keep on hammering a country with missiles until the will of the people is eradicated,” Scott said.
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“But the stamina of the people over here is strong and that’s why I love this country. There’s only one way that peace will be restored here and that is when Russia pulls its troops from Ukraine.”
An estimated 8,000 foreign volunteers, including hundreds of Britons, have joined the Ukrainian International Legion and other units within the Ukrainian military.
Scott’s call sign is “Caesar” but he quickly points out that this was chosen by his comrades – not himself. He used his real name in this interview because the Russians identified him long ago.
Pro-Kremlin websites have accused him of being a mercenary and offered a bounty for him, dead or alive. But speaking near a safe house his unit uses during rests from frontline duty, he refuted the allegation completely.
“I’m not a mercenary and those I care about know I’m not here for money. I came here because when I see women, children, innocent civilians being killed, injured and maimed, I just can’t sit back and watch.”
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Scott was born in Newcastle in 1967, into a family with a history of military service. He was taken into Britain’s elite Parachute regiment aged 20, and spent nine years with the their Third Battalion, including 30 months in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles” and a spell with peace-keeping forces in Iraq.
He became aware of Ukraine after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and decided to volunteer his military skills after Putin’s 2022 full-blown invasion. He compared Russia’s act of aggression to “something from the age of Genghis Khan that shouldn’t be happening in this day and age.”
“We each have a responsibility to fight against dictatorship and evil,” he added. “And humanity has lost something when you can brush these horrors aside as if they’re nothing.”
Scott was 55 years old when he enlisted in the legion in 2023, leading some younger comrades to jokingly refer to him as “grandad”. His experience from the British Army led to his swift promotion to lead a mortar platoon in the legion. Since, he has seen action in many of the war’s most vicious battles in the east and southeast. “All the nightmare places.”
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Typically, he said, the platoon digs trenches and bunkers in their new positions and the mortars are covered by camouflaged sliding roofs that open only to fire a salvo. In 2023 they could hope that these would remain concealed for long periods. Not anymore.
“Drones have changed everything, even in the last few months,” he said. “There are swarms of attack drones in the sky and surveillance drones high up watching everything to identify our positions. Once they spot you they throw everything at you.”
Recently his mortar post, comprising a bunker and tunnels, was spotted and attacked by Russian artillery and FPV (First Person View) suicide drones.
“An explosive drone came through the roof where we had our 82mm mortar in the tunnel……we were getting hammered by heavy artillery for about two hours….. then more FPVs came in. The soil was caving in on us. And then, boom, a great big cloud of smoke came through the tunnels into the bunker. And then another explosion came in and it just blew me off my feet.”
Eventually, he said they managed to evacuate with only one man seriously injured while Scott only suffered a concussion. He is proud that nobody under his command has been killed although four have been injured.
He said Russian drones have taken a terrible toll in deaths and injuries, including psychological scars.
Scott said: “It’s a type of warfare that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. You can see where a lot of the guys are going to suffer with mental health issues like PTSD. The buzzing sound of a drone is there at the front all the time. It gets to you and you think ‘is this my time?’”
He said that the sound of drones haunts soldiers even in peaceful settings. “The sound of a blender in a kitchen, a lawnmower, an air-conditioner can freak you out.”
Scott thinks the war is unlikely to end soon. “What you have to remember is that Putin’s a psychotic f****** maniac who’ll do anything to remain in power.”
Some believe Trump will try to strong arm Ukraine into permanently giving up territory to Russia. Scott said he and his comrades think “that would be a total betrayal of the armed forces, of the guys who’ve paid the ultimate price and of families who have suffered over the years.”
But he said “the morale of the guys in our platoon, our battalion, is awesome.”
“We’re in for the long haul. Until the Russians get their troops out.”
