An ex-Para, his ‘Dark Angels’ and a mission to kill a Russian tank
Colin Freeman meets the British leader of an international ‘dirty dozen’ who staged a death-defying strike in Ukraine last month
Daniel Burke, the leader of a group of foreign military volunteers in Ukraine, prefers not to say exactly where they launched their recent ambush on the Russians. But his description of it – “the bottom of the a--e end of no-man’s land” – says it all.
His unit, who call themselves the Dark Angels, had crept up to the Russian frontlines outside the southern port city of Kherson. They’d gone through five miles of artillerycratered fields peppered with landmines and boobytraps. Now, finally, they had their target – a Russian tank patrolling between two villages.
As they readied a US Javelin anti-tank missile, however, Burke heard an ominous noise from a nearby gully. He recognised it as a soldier’s gun clanking against the magazines strapped to his chest – which could only belong to a Russian.
“In a stressful situation like that, your heart is banging, and you could just be imagining things,” Burke says. “But one of the guys with me had heard it too. I was scared sh-tless – if you’re not scared at that point, you’re insane and you shouldn’t be in a warzone.” It was not to be the Russians’ day. Burke’s comrades took out the tank with Javelin, opening up with machine-gun fire to cover their retreat. The clanking Russian, he reckons, lost his footing and tumbled down the slope. A few hours later, he and his team were back behind Ukrainian lines in Mykolaiv, unwinding over beers.
In a café there last week, Burke, 35, gave The Sunday Telegraph his first detailed account of last month’s mission, footage of which has since gone viral online. It is hardly surprising. For one thing, it was probably the first British-led hit on Russian troops in this part of the world since the Crimean War in the 1850s. For another, it testifies to the growing involvement of Western military volunteers in Ukraine, where thousands are now believed to be fighting, including several hundred Britons. Burke’s video may encourage yet more. Anyone thinking of following suit, though, should remember that many foreign volunteers’ adventures in Ukraine have not had happy endings.
Two Britons – Scott Sibley and Jordan Gatley – have already been killed in action. At least three others – Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Andrew Hill – are being held as prisoners of war in the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic, where they face execution as “mercenaries”.
Others have simply returned home, having found that life in Ukraine’s “International Brigade” wasn’t the Hemingway-esque experience they expected. Some talk of being sent on “suicide missions” without proper weaponry. Others have struggled to get near the front lines at all, thanks to red tape and disorganisation.
Daniel Burke is among the few so far with a decent war story. He tells it in a Mancunian accent as broad as the Ukrainian steppe – the product of his upbringing on the city’s giant Wythenshawe housing estate. He joined as a private in the Paras when he was in his 20s and spent time in Afghanistan in a Quick Reaction Force, a unit sent to rescue other soldiers in trouble.
What has also served him well in Ukraine, though, is that he already has experience of fighting other people’s wars. In 2017, after the Manchester Arena bombing, he went to Syria to fight Islamic State with the Kurdish YPG militia. He fought in numerous battles there, earning respect among the “Lads’ Army” of other British YPG volunteers, some of whom are also now in Ukraine. “He’s a typical Para, a go-getter and scrapper,” says fellow
YPG veteran Macer Gifford, whose memoir, Fighting Evil, is a 21st-century Homage to Catalonia.
Just as George Orwell fought Franco’s fascism, and the YPG took on Islamo-fascism, volunteers in Ukraine see themselves as fighting a Russian variant. “If we leave Ukraine to lose, we give Russia a lot of freedom of movement,” says Burke. “But unless you’re willing to fight and die here, don’t come.”
Even he, though, found it hard to get stuck in at first. Much as Ukraine officially welcomes experienced foreign volunteers, nobody is simply handed a gun straight away, let alone a £200,000 Javelin. To get the blessing for the operation from Ukrainian high command – plus the missile – Burke spent days poring over drone footage and preparing a PowerPoint presentation, like a contractor bidding for a tender. “When you’re planning that kind of operation, you need everyone on board,” he says. “But it also makes much more sense when they see it via PowerPoint, with pictures, diagrams, videos and so on.”
When he first came to Ukraine in March, he planned to do aid work rather than fighting. He was “burnt out”, he says, by Syria, which ended with him prosecuted in Britain for helping the YPG plan “acts of terrorism” against Turkey, which opposes Kurdish separatism. The case – one of several investigations against British YPG fighters – eventually collapsed, but not before Burke had spent seven months on remand in Wandsworth jail.
He named the Dark Angels after his black SUV, which he used for aid deliveries. However, after reports emerged of the Russian atrocities at Irpin and Bucha, the Dark Angels’ mission got rather darker.
“I got p----d off hearing all these stories of families being murdered,” he says. “By then, a few other people I knew were out here too, and I thought we could form a decent combo doing both humanitarian and military ops.”
Surprisingly, this does not mean an elite outfit staffed purely by ex-Paras and SAS. Instead, the Angels are a kind of international Dirty Dozen, including an ex-convict, a Frenchman and an ex-US marine. Among them is fellow Syria veteran Mark Ayres, who spent time in prison after leaving the Royal Green Jackets. He says fighting in Ukraine is better than being an “old git living in a rented room” at home.
Others, though, have no military experience at all – including exstudent Sam Newey, 21, whose older brother fought with Burke in Syria. Burke advised him to train first as a medic, to see if he could handle “the wounded, the dead and stressful situations”.
“You’ve got to know what it feels like to actually get someone else’s blood on your skin,” he says. “Or you can just have a mental breakdown on the front line, especially if fighting a superior army. And let’s face it, this isn’t al-Qaeda or IS armed with just AK47s – this is the Russians, with planes, tanks and a massive army.”
Nonetheless, Newey was one of those on the recent tank operation. So too was an American who first came to Ukraine just as a photographer. For all the talk of Ukraine not being a warzone for amateurs, Burke says it’s possible to learn on the job – as many Ukrainian volunteers have had to.
“People can serve in the military for 20 years, and still be a sh-t soldier if they don’t learn,” he says. “That American photographer is now one of the best soldiers I have seen. I noticed the same in Syria – my best mate there, Ollie Hall, was a plumber before he came out there.” (Hall was killed while clearing a landmine).
He complains, though, that it is not easy keeping an international unit of volunteers together. Unlike in a regular army, where a commander’s word is law, here it can be like herding cats in battle. Some are “Rambos” who want to run off on missions without proper planning. That, he says, is a quick route into a bodybag.
“The no-man’s land toward Kherson is like the First World War – very flat, with nowhere to hide except the odd house or ditch. And the Russian artillery smashes hell out of you.”
His time in Helmand, where improvised explosive devices were a major hazard, helps with awareness for Russian landmines and booby-traps. Also valuable, though, has been the British Army’s “non-commissioned officer” culture, whereby operational decisions are devolved to lower ranks.
“I can read maps and see positions, which gets you a lot of trust among the generals here – not all of their own soldiers can do that.”
On the day of the tank mission, however, it was made clear to the Dark Angels that they were on their own. “We were up into no-man’s land and then the Ukrainian recon unit with us said, ‘We’re not going any further, if you guys want to push forward, go for it’,” Burke says.
“Then, on the way back, I saw a drone overhead and waved at it, thinking it was a Ukrainian one keeping an eye on us. But when we got back to base, I asked the Ukrainian commander if he’d seen me wave, and he said he’d never sent one.”
The word around Mykolaiv is that Burke’s work has been appreciated by his Ukrainian counterparts. However, the work of a British military volunteer is far from straight forward.
The day after I spoke to Burke, I bumped into him again in the same Mykolaiv café. It turned out he’d had to have a “reshuffle” in the Dark Angels because of an “incident” on base.
“Long story, but I’ve had a couple of people messing about, which I can’t accept,” he says, diplomatically.
Burke is still in charge and is now planning new missions.
Clearly, the battle of the bottom of the a--e end of no-man’s land is not over yet.
‘Unless you’re willing to fight and die here, don’t come’