The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues on.
And many folks that are there fighting back very courageously,
probably could use some reinforcements.
We've seen President Zelensky talk about getting more help anyway possible.
Little they know there's potential reinforcements coming in from Reddit.
Let's look at some of these, there's a subreddit that's called volunteers for
Ukraine pretty straightforward.
I think you might understand what that might be about, but
it has over 45,000 subscribers.
And it's mostly populated with people talking about how they can potentially
help Ukraine, many people asking how they could.
But one, aspect of this group are people that are straight up saying,
here I go, what can I do?
I'm showing up.
Let's look at some of these posts from that particular subreddit.
This, this first one says, well, boys, time to fly.
I guess he's at the airport,
looks like airport carpet with a bag between his feet ready to go.
I'm not sure what is in that bag or
if it's gonna help him with his battles there.
The next one says, can I fight in Ukraine?
I'm a 24 year old male, Welsh, relatively fit, willing to learn whatever it takes.
I have no military experience, can I fight for Ukraine?
Again now, I don't go to Reddit much, but
I think there's some points of this where I'm not sure the degree of seriousness.
Many of these folks would say maybe they're just trying to get a response to
have a conversation.
Some people are lonely, I don't know.
That's just my take on that particular one.
Another one says, can you bring your own gun?
This thing is a little more serious.
Just wondering if you have a kit, you're used to,
that you would be able to bring your own gun.
Like say, for instance, you didn't want to use the AK47 that they're issuing, so
bringing his own kit, I guess that's a little more serious.
Also, the people that these potential soldiers that are looking to get in there,
they were met with some skepticism.
As you can imagine, some people going, what are you talking about?
You're not a soldier.
One trying to explain exactly how serious doing something like this would be.
And they said, imagine you're playing a multiplayer game for the first time
against people who have 1000 hours of the game, who have played one hours the game.
But the first time you die, you're dead, one someone warned.
You wouldn't even have the context to understand what's going on,
it'll be over before it even happened.
Maybe there's some truth to that.
Also as these warnings did come in, the people that wanted to go over there,
didn't really wanna hear it.
So when critics point out that the inexperienced fighters could be
a liability on the battlefield,
they've often been accused of being quote Russian shills.
They're on a mission to thwart foreign volunteer efforts and
others are giving sensible advice have also been accused of gatekeeping.
Lately I've been seeing many people telling us, don't go there,
you won't do anything, you will die.
Honestly what the f don't you mind your own business?
Is what one user wrote.
I don't know how to operate and maintain a weapon, but if I get for
any reason killed, that's my problem.
I guess that's a straightforward statement there.
And also there's also more than 20,000 foreign fighters from 52 countries that
are thought to have at least attempted to join this battlefield
in Ukraine since they were invaded by Russia in February.
And those applicants run the gamut from hardened veterans of the US and
other militaries to war tourists with no military expertise at all,
as we saw there.
I did a story about this on the watch list maybe two weeks ago about one particular
guy who went there, he's part of one of these militia groups here in America and
he joined up.
They snatched his gear for him.
He was telling this particular story about how don't go there, it's a trap.
And his story telling of what happened to him there, which wasn't backed up by his
fellow, I think they were proud boys or someone like that.
They were like no I didn't experience that.
So there's a lot of stories going back and forth.
But one thing that that that was across the board was this isn't a video game
you guys.
>> Just to respond to the one comment that you read from the person who said,
why do you care?
Why are you gatekeeping?
This is my life, if I die, I die.
But that's not the case because when you're involved in these situations and
you have no experience, you could get other people killed.
Not just you, it's not just your life, it's the group of people that you're with
and your inexperience is it becomes a liability.
Also these people are, coming in with no training so they need some training
which is just a drain on the the limited resources that they do have.
And it's it's tough because a lot of these people have good intentions.
They've seen an atrocity and they really want to help.
But there are,
organizations that are doing humanitarian work that they could donate to or
even get involved in providing those administering that humanitarian aid.
You don't have to, I don't know,
360 no scope Vladimir Putin to help people in Ukraine right?
You can help with refugees.
You can help provide water and food to the Ukrainian soldiers.
You don't have to go there and Call of Duty it yourself, and
it seems just like these people are, some of them, they can't imagine
that there's any way that they could help aside from going in with a gun.
>> Yeah I don't pretend like I'm hardened and battle ready.
I have not known, direct military combat in my life.
So I'm not gonna posture about this.
But I completely agree that if you're going into a situation like that,
that is already very dangerous and, you have absolutely
no experience outside of maybe seeing a couple of movies or video games.
And then you throw yourself into it's not gonna help the situation,
you're gonna have a lot of people who will probably have to hold your hand in
a time of crisis when they don't have the luxury of doing that.
So I don't really have much beyond that to say that I think the moment you
sit down and settle into the reality of what it is like to be in war,
it'll probably be a horrifying experience.
>> And that's the reason why maybe folks that know what they're doing would be
upset with you or maybe sharp with you.
As I was pointing out that one guy said, they talked to us in a kind of way,
some of them said you're not going anywhere here, give me that, take this.
Because again, and I'm glad Lance that you mentioned movies and video games because
we're living in that so much now people really think, yeah, totally.
I know how to operate a gun, yeah, sure I know how to army crawl.
Or whatever it is that they think they need to do in order to come
in an absolutely unknown situation and then become Rambo.
We stopped making those hero movies, I felt like around 1992, but
we still think that.
>> I was gonna ask, did you ever see the headlines around the time,
shortly after the second Iraq invasion?
Where there was kind of like the creation of Isil or Isis or
whatever was going by at the time.
And there was people from America and Canada who were joining it and
they joined it because they had seen the propaganda videos and everything.
But shortly after joining, a lot of them were, I can't find a charger for
my iPod or things like that or I couldn't find the plug for this.
I was like, what did you think this was gonna be like this?
It's not glamorous, you saw a propaganda video.
>> You would think that people would realize that difference.
But I don't know man, it's hard to get other people's heads and
actually realize what they think they're getting themselves into.