THEY WILL ME SLOWLY & BRUTALLY Rhys: ‘I’ve grenade for myself if Russians close in’ Personal details are on a Russian military hit list
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A BRAVE Irish soldier in Ukraine who is on a Russian kill list with a US$50,000 (€46,000) bounty on his head has told how he is “guaranteed a slow and brutal death” if captured.
Rhys Byrne (28) from Santry, Dublin, is a commissioned soldier in the International Freedom Fighters which operates on the front lines in Ukraine and also behind enemy lines in Moscow held territory.
The Dubliner is involved in work including evacuations of Ukrainian prisoners held by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops in Kremlin controlled areas.
Rhys also swoops in behind enemy lines in reconnaissance missions to gather intel on Moscow’s forces, he says, in dangerous work which can lead to gun battles.
“There are parts [around the front] where you will get small arms fire and you will come into engagements with occupiers and when you come into it you just deal with it,” he said.
And that can mean raising his assault weapon and firing at Russian troops in close combat.
Equipment
“I took a picture of the dead body after and so we could take it back [to camp] for intelligence purposes, to identify human patches and equipment so we can try to identify what [Russian] equipment and that.”
A video shows the Dublin man in action in Ukraine, including patrolling the site of the abandoned German consulate in Kyiv following a Kremlin missile strike on October 10. Rhys is seen walking through rubble and debris and shouting “f**king Russians” as he walks past a dead body covered in a yellow sheet.
The attack on the empty diplomatic office came in a barrage of Moscow missile strikes across Ukraine that day which left 14 dead, officials in Kyiv said.
Rhys first picked up a weapon in the embattled country on behalf of Kyiv’s forces just weeks after Russia invaded.
And his military missions to date have landed him on a Russian hit list.
He is one of more than 400 foreign fighters operating in the nation who have a target on their head. Moscow’s spies drummed up the compilation of names, seen by The Star, through their network of spooks operating in
Ukraine, according to Rhys. Kyiv’s own SBU spy chiefs turned up the catalogue of foreign targets through its own network just months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 last year.
Passport
Ukrainian military bosses later informed the fighters such as Rhys that they were on the list. It shows the soldier’s name, date of birth and passport number — all in English below a Russian-language heading of the country of nationality.
Rhys’ name is among 14 Irish names, including one female name, under the heading for “Ireland”.
“I think they [Russians] just got names and said right let’s just scare the foreigners,” Rhys believes.