Europe

5111 readers

1601 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].

founded 9 months ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

163

A Canadian combat medic in Ukraine: ‘I looked at my children and thought I had to do something’ (english.elpais.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Archive: none required, use reader mode if necessary

April Huggett traded her life as a homemaker in Canada for the trenches of Ukraine to defend democracy and freedom against Russia’s expansionist ambitions

Until 2022, April Huggett’s life revolved around caring for her three children, then aged two, seven, and 11. The Russian invasion of Ukraine shook her so much that she decided to trade that life as a homemaker for the trenches and daily bombings on the Donetsk front, one of the most active of the war, to defend democracy and the free world where she was born against the expansionist threat of Russia. “After the Bucha massacre, it was really hard for me to move on. It was so similar to World War II... I looked at my children and thought I had to do something,” she recalls at the foot of a trench in a Donbas forest, where she is training with her comrades from the Alcatraz Battalion. Huggett, 36, wasn’t content with being a volunteer; she enlisted and, since December 2024, has served as a combat medic for this battalion, part of the 93rd Kholodny Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade and made up exclusively of ex-convicts who took up a government offer of sentence reductions to fight on the front lines. Huggett disinfects the finger of a recruit who has just cut himself on a tool and says: “These people are my family. They are my friends.”

top 12 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Just to highlight, she left a two year old, a seven year old, and a ten year old in one of the highest cost of living countries in order to go play soldier in a country she has never been to and has no connections to that cannot possibly pay her more than canadian minimum wage.

There's no justifiable reason, russia isn't going to invade canada next, ukraine doesn't pay their mercenaries particularly well, her kids aren't grown and her family isn't well off enough to not have either a homemaker or second income. Everyone involved's life is worse for this, except her's... She thinks she found a new family and is happy.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

Q. Did your family support your decision to stay in Ukraine?

A. No, and it’s been hard.

No shit. She sounds like an awful person.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Honestly, I agree. My first thought was that this woman’s having a mental breakdown. And I don’t buy it’s “for her kids”. What was threatening her kids? Are her kids going to see it that way in 20 years?

Usually I’m live and let live but something about this strikes me as… extreme and not a realistic expectation of people across the world without a cohesive plan.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

She’s a medic. I know many American veterans who had a similar gut reaction. Many of them volunteered for military service for a few months in Ukraine to fight against encroaching fascism.

Hell, I wanted to volunteer but I’m not trained as a soldier or a medic. If I was, I’d probably do a round there too. Many Medics aren’t much different in spirit than the veterans I know who served in Ukraine already. It’s not surprising that she felt this way and chose to do a tour.

If you are service minded, and can also see that the war in Ukraine is already a World War, then the choice is more obvious.

Sure, she has children, but she also has valuable medical skills. There are many doctors that volunteer in war zones who also have families. This has always been a call of duty for medics who have a heart like this.

Last time, Canadians declared war against Germany immediately after Hitler invaded Poland. Then, Canada actively discouraged sending troops and preferred sending arms and training. Now, we do not have a declaration of war, but we do have similar behavior of sending arms and training.

We also similarly have civilians volunteer to join the front before their countries officially do.

Do people forget that Canadians and Americans chose to fight the Nazis, as individuals, well before their country officially declared war?

Do we look back on those volunteers with negativity? No, we don’t.

So, why would I look negatively at a medic following in the footsteps of the Greatest Generation? I can’t. If I had her skills, I’d do the same.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Wearing fake eyelashes on deployment seems so wild to me

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

She's in it for social media clout as well judging by the amount of selfies

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I wish stories like these were part of the national narrative. Things would be a lot different.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 days ago

"I have to die for them "