Shot, hung, or knighted

 

Lord Byron, earlier today

It is a truth universally acknowledged that no one likes a mercenary except the government they are fighting for. The British mercenaries who fought in the Belgian Congo in the early to mid 1960s, for example, were widely despised at home. Fighting for your nation is honourable. Fighting for someone else's money is not.

However, a number of young British men went to fight in and for Ukraine when Putin invaded that country over three months ago. Far from being dismissed or dissuaded by the British government, however, they were encouraged.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss gave her blessing to young British men with a Flashman-style taste for swashbuckling adventure when the invasion first happened. She was warned that this implicit call to arms was both unethical and very probably illegal, but anyone wishing to virtue-signal at that time needed to look no further than the Ukraine, despite the fact that the country is a nasty and fascistic little regime. Putin is more than welcome to it.

Now, however, there is silence from the Foreign Office for the simple reason that some of these British guns for hire have been captured by the Russians and, rather than being given a comfortable jail cell in St. Petersburg, with a nice bunk and a warm samovar full of chai, they are going to be executed.

What the hell did they expect? As a matter of fact, pro-Putin Ukrainian separatists are going to the be the ones putting on the show trial before the two men are likely put up against a wall and shot. Putin is out-sourcing his death squads.

Putin is not a nice guy. Neither is Ukraine's Premier, Zelensky. If it were a sports game, you would want both sides to lose. But don't travel thousands of miles to fight for a country which is not yours and expect lenient treatment if you are stupid enough to fall into enemy hands. I don't imagine Putin has the Geneva Convention framed on the wall of his Kremlin office.

I feel no sympathy for these men, who really should have paid more attention to Lord Byron's lines on the subject.

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home

Let him combat for that of his neighbours.

Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,

And get knock'd on the head for his labours.

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,

And is always as nobly requited.

Then battle for freedom wherever you can,

And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.

Sorry gentleman but, in another age, Hunter S. Thompson did say, buy the ticket take the ride.