The son of a Conservative MP has explained how he helped save a British volunteer fighter in Ukraine while under heavy Russian fire after being wounded by a landmine.
Ben Grant arrived in Ukraine in March, when he told the Guardian that he had moved to volunteer after seeing footage of a Russian bombing of a house where a child could be heard screaming. He said he went without telling his mother, Deputy Helen Grant, that he was going.
A dramatic video, published by the Telegraph, follows the 30-year-old, who is a veteran of Afghanistan and a former royal marine, shouting, “We have to move now or we will die!”
Meanwhile, he and others dragged former grenadier guard Dean Arthur to a safe place after a Russian ambush in a forest north of Kharkiv earlier this month.
He told the newspaper of his terror, saying, “I have never experienced anything like it in my life.”
He said he believed they had been spotted by drones before and that the Russians had set up their lines because when they entered, a “massive firefight” ensued.
He added: “I was terrified but driven to complete my most important goal, which was to get him and my team out of danger at the time.
“What was so scary was being so limited trying to carry someone, when I can’t pull out my gun, while there are attack helicopters on top and tanks firing through the woods. It was unreal: I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life. “.
He said his unit of 15 British and American volunteers and two Ukrainian translators had been preparing for an assault on a Russian-controlled target earlier this month.
The video, filmed with a helmet-mounted camera, shows them trying to treat Arthur’s leg with a tourniquet and a dressing. He is heard saying, “You must try to walk or we will die, comrade.”
Arthur lost part of his lower left calf after kneeling in the mine, but is now in a hospital in Kyiv where doctors saved his leg.
The group was reportedly part of a Ukrainian counteroffensive to expel Russian troops from Kharkiv. In some places, they were pushed to the Russian border.
Arthur, 42, of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, said he was in “unbearable pain” and added that he was lucky to have escaped alive.
“This kind of companionship is only forged in these situations. If the coin had been tossed, he was one of those guys, he would have taken them out, “he said.
The government has advised all Britons not to travel to Ukraine, while Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace has warned British soldiers that they could be prosecuted for desertion if they go to Ukraine to fight.
The Guardian has contacted Helen Grant and the Foreign Office for comment.