Truth about Chosen Company: Did Americans kill Russian POWs?
We talk about the legendary video of this war and one of the craziest assault operations in August 2023, as well as the NYT scandal and war crimes accusations - about this and more with Ryan O’Leary, one of the most respected people in the Russian-Ukrainian war. The American veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is the commander of CHOSEN COMPANY, a volunteer unit in the Ukrainian infantry.
-Hello, friends, and now we will talk to one of the heroes, the American hero of this war in Ukraine, and we will talk about one of the craziest storm operations, Operation Shovel, during this war in 2023, and about the scandal of New York Times and the accusation in war crimes. Some warriors, volunteer warriors in Ukraine, it's a very blaming situation, and this accusation, it's one of the biggest fakes that I`ve seen during my journalistic career. And now our guest, we will speak with one of the more respectable men in this war, Ryan O'Leary, commander of Chosen Company, a volunteer unit in the Ukrainian infantry. And the Chosen Company, these guys, they filmed this video, storm operation on the Hill 105, that I shot, and you can see this video.
- Nice to see you, Ryan.
- I am glad to be here.
- You are a hero, a real war hero, we will talk about your storm operation in August 2023. And now you are at the center of a scandal of New York Times: they interviewed one of your ex-soldiers, Caspar Grosse. And he said that your unit executed Russian POWs, and this is a very big scandal. I want to tell you about this story and do an after-action review of this fight to show it with your comments and so that you can explain to us where these allegations from Caspar came from.
- Perfect.
- And now we will feel the atmosphere of this battle. This is an incredible video from the GoPro camera of the Chosen unit. In August 2023, near the village of Pervomaiske, Donetsk region. This is one of the most impressive, best videos of this war, of modern warfare. And one of the craziest storm operations I've ever seen.
- Okay, what was the plan of this operation?
- The plan of the operation was that we were going to take the first three HMMWV and drive past the first Russian position, and then, basically assault like more rear position of the Russian soldiers, and then the Ukrainian team, which is "Charlie's team" in the original video, would then come up and clear the zero line, the very first position.
The position that we drove past, was like an enemy machine gun position, an observation position. The commander of the company Kozak said: "You guys are crazy!" And then he said: "Okay, let's do it." We had done it before. And I don't think many units in this war have ever thought, you know: "Let's just bypass the Russians...let's deal with them in the rear first, and then attack the front later."
That's why you see a lot of shooting when we try to dismantle and so on. Because we didn't attack the zero line - we attacked behind it, so it caught the Russians off guard.
- How many warriors do you have for this operation?
- For assault dismantles, we originally had 12 people.
- What about the enemies at this position?
- We were told there were at least about 14+, but they were not sure. In the end, there were 20 to 30 men in total.
START OF OPERATION
- Wow!
- It was my HMMWV.
-Your HMMWV?
-Yes. I was in an unarmored unit. When we got blown up... It's a little weird or funny... But as soon as we hit an anti-tank mine, I was blown out of the vehicle. I jumped back in, and the only thing I was thinking about was getting all our gear out of there. Because during the previous operation, we lost a lot of equipment, and our commander was always giving us crap: "You guys are just going to leave all this stuff in the fields, as usual". So when we came across an anti-tank mine, the only thing I was thinking was that we had to get all the equipment out so we could return it to the base after the operation. So I spent another minute or so jumping in and out of the Humvee to get all the gear while we were being shot at!
WHAT WAS THE SCHEME OF THE COMBAT?
- Could you please explain to us the scheme of this combat?
-So, again, we had three HMMWVs, and then the Ukrainians came in the fourth HMMWV. They were offset by maybe two or three minutes. So once we started the operation, the Ukrainian unit was waiting for us to start moving forward so they could push easier. Our groups in this video are Alpha and Bravo, and Charlie's unit was Ukrainians who had to run against a fortified machine gun position, and there were two Russian PKMs and a bunch of soldiers. But they were dropped off too early, so they actually had to push up on foot, which was a little bit difficult for them.
- Did you plan to fragment this Russian position?
- That was the goal, and we did work out! The only problem, and it actually worked out in our benefit, was that Charlie's team getting dropped off too early, it actually allowed us to set up our positions, so you could see that sniper was watching our rear sector. If they had been dropped off at the enemy position instead of further west as they were, we probably wouldn't have set up the rear security as quickly as we did, so it could have been much worse, but because it worked, yes, it was basically necessary to fragment the positions because the biggest issue with the Russian military is that they have no command and control, so when they have a complex assault, they don't know what to do, and that's what you'll see in the video footage. It's similar to what we did with Alpha and Bravo, we attacked from two sides and we didn't get much resistance except for one fighter, and they just all huddled together in one corner. And when your enemy is in one spot, you just throw grenades at them and then smother them with fire and that's it.
- Oh, wow, what a footage! The Russian soldier, did you see him?
-The guy? No, I didn't see him, because I was on the other side. The guy who engaged him, saw him, he missed him here, but this soldier was the only one who fought back here. This is the one you'll see later that shot one of our guys in the neck, but luckily our guy was paying attention and was quick enough to fire enough rounds to force him back to the corner area. But I didn't personally see until we saw the footage. There was also a guy on our side who tried to do the same thing, but then he was shot by our guys before he could shoot at us with the PKM.
They probably would have put up a larger fight if we hadn't gotten into the trenches so quickly as we did, i mean it took less than two minutes from the moment we hit the anti-tank mine to the moment we got into the trench. So they didn't have a chance to really get into position to fight back. The northern... Russian who shot the guy in the neck, he was the only one who really... figured out what was happening, so he tried to fight back. The others might have fired one or two rounds at us before we knocked them out and killed them.
THE FIRST SOLDIER WAS WOUNDED
- Was he shocked?
- Yep, he was shocked. He was hit pretty hard. He got quite a serious concussion. He had some internal bruising from the shock wave. But he was good, he came back in two weeks fighting. As a rule, everyone seems to be calm during surgeries, but we are always mad at Dirty P because he is always like that: "Can I please change my position?" You know, most people would be like, "Oh, fuck it, I'm out of here," and just... move on, but P...
- Cold-blooded, "Could I change my position?" Wow! That's great!
ABOUT THE CONNECTION
-Did you have during this fight any communication with the Kozak?
- We were tried a radio, and if the Ukrainian team behind us was able to contact the Kozak, they just said we were still alive! That's all!" Nothing got through, all was broken, you could say two words, and then everything would just be noisy, and it was very hard to hear anything. Yes: the Kozak saw the operation at the hq with all the screens and from the drone, and they saw how they shot at Mossy, but as for communication with me at the front, no, there was no communication, zero. Because everything was jammed. And as I said, we didn't even know that our relief was approaching until we saw a guy's head running toward us and he was shouting: "Friends, friends, America," so we knew that it was a Ukrainian coming to us, not another Russian!
RUSSIAN WITH A MACHINE GUN
This Russian was very motivated, he was the only one who really fought, he knew what was happening, so he fought, but the others were just confused, they didn't know what to do.
MOSSY'S INJURY
- Could you please explain to us about the health of Mossy?
-Mossy was hit in the neck, but the bullet went out and did not hit any veins. It's lucky that the bullet went out of his lower back, but there's a reason why he got shot and it's not his fault. Because it's like a T-intersection, you can go left or right, and he went to check the right side, and then when he turned to check the left, he got shot. But still, we will not forget it for a long time and we will laugh at him. But now he is fine. He is fighting again. He is back in operations, which is great!
OLLIE THROWS A GRENADE
- Wow!
- Yes, it was a good throw, that was Ollie.
- Ollie killed that Russian with the machine gun, the most dangerous. Great job! How many Russians did you find in these bunkers?
- There were a bunch of Russians there, but we didn't shoot any of them, because we just killed them with grenades! Kozak often said we use a lot of grenades on operations, each person has at least twelve grenades, plus we have two sets of charges, and in this operation we came back to the base with zero grenades, so you're looking at 50-60 grenades used.
- He fought very well!
- Yes, this guy, as I understood, he was from the far east of Russia - Buryats, or whatever they are called them? He fought good, he had good equipment, but he should surrendered!
- He could surrender, but he kept fighting! And we see it on the video! He is very good-equipped!
- Yes. They were not just mobilized, they had night vision thermals, so they were probably part of the ninth regiment or whatever unit was in the area as contract soldiers.
A BAD DAY AT THE OFFICE
- What did he say?
- He said that it is bad day at the office, mate, your day sucks. Dave likes to make a joke at every operation!
- Dave, is he an American?
- No, he's an Aussie! One of our Australians.
What the fuck?
- You can see in the video where Swed, the sniper is yelling, "What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK??? Because they just ran at us, he shot the first one, and I behind him, 10 meters away, probably 5 meters away, and I was yelling: "SURRENDER! SURRENDER!" And he thought "Stich! Stich! And there was another guy, 59th, the Ukrainian, whose name was Stich! But Swed misheard it, because he had ear protection, he just heard something with a "C" in it! And then when he got close, and he had a letter Z on his chest! And our sniper started yelling: "What the fuck? What the fuck? Like, this is a Russian! So he was a bit confused! But the Russian was also 100% confused! When that guy got to our trench, Swed tried to grab him, but he turned around and ran away, the others did the same, then I ordered Swed to start shooting again, because they had the opportunity to surrender, and instead of surrendering, they, ran back to their defensive positions.
-There were six guys that fled, they're over there on the left. One of the Russians was wearing a bright blue jacket!
- Only two guys controlled them?
- Yes, and in this section, only Swed had a weapon. He was with Zeus, and Zeus was in an HMMWV that blewn up at the beginning of the operation. And his ankle was like shattered, broken. His weapon was left in the HMMWV, and all he had were grenades. So in these sides, it's Swed with a sniper rifle, Zeus next to him, and he has grenades. 10 meters behind him was a medic, and then me too.
- It was one of the funniest moments of the war I've ever seen!
HOW THEY ARE TAKEN PRISONER
- This is a very interesting moment, very impressive moment, he is going, and he is running but he is without the riffle!
- The goal was that this guy would come out to us in the trenches, he surrender and we would capture him. But again if you slow down, frame by frame, you can even see Swed actually grabbing the guy by the hand, and he pulls away, then turns around and runs again. So if he turns around and wants to go back to fighting positions, where riffles were, so you know the game on, shoot on. So we tried to capture on, but they didn't surrender, they came up to us, and then they realized that we were not Russians and ran back to fighting position.
- But we can see that you are trying to keep him alive, because he is without a rifle, and you are not shooting. Could you please explain to us, this is very important, about prisoners?
- We have a standard operating procedure, if you can take a prisoner, you need to take a prisoner. There is no such thing as "I am not taking prisoners! No! If they surrender, or if they are severely wounded, they pose no threat, you take them prisoner! We would take this guy and his friends who were behind him prisoner, but the problem is that they turned around and ran back to their fighting position! Before each operation, we have so-called POW kits - these kits have flex cuffs, like zip ties, blindfolds, extra medical, and a prisoner card so you can write information in it. So we try to take prisoners wherever we can, obviously prisoners are important because everyone we capture can be exchanged for a Ukrainian prisoner. So this whole deal about us executing Russians is bullshit! We rather have them as prisoners because they are more valuable! A dead Russian is a dead Russian, he is worth nothing!
- He was surprised to hear English, but if he left in this position, would he live?
- Yes, if he had stayed there, and as I said, you could slow down the video and see where the Swed actually physically grabbed him in one of the frames of the video. If he had listened to the commands and stopped, he would have been perfectly fine! But instead, he ignored the commands and ran away!
HOW MANY PRISONERS WERE TAKEN DURING THE ENTIRE WAR
- How many prisoners did you take during this war?
- There was also a Russian unit in this sector, comprised of foreign fighters from Nepal, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and China. We captured a Nepali during the next operation. And then we captured maybe 11-12 men. But depending on what part of the front you are on, it depends on which Russian unit it is, for example, from the south, many of these guys did not want to surrender, we have a video where we ask a Russian in a trench, in a position called "Samara", to surrender in Russian, because we have guys who speak Russian fluently. They shout at the guy, saying, "Put your arms and surrender," and the guys yelled "Fuck you," so at that moment we seem to throw grenades at them. But yeah, we've taken Russians prisoner, and usually, as soon as we take Russians prisoner, we just hand them over to the Ukrainians. So, if we had captured this soldier, we would have handcuffed and blindfolded him and then given him to the Ukrainians, because it's very difficult to try to take Russians or Russian prisoners behind the front line, so if we take prisoners, we hand them over to the Ukrainians, and then the Ukrainians bring them out. It's safer for the prisoners and safer for us, because they, the Ukrainians, can communicate with the prisoners better than we can. The only thing we used to bring back from them was usually cell phones, radios and things like that, because we could take it out, but the prisoners always go to the Ukrainians.
- The commander of the 59th Brigade, Vadym Sukharevskyi, said me that the 59th Brigade took four prisoners during this assault operation.
- Yeah, I think that was one of the ones that came from Charlie's team. So all these accusations that we don't keep prisoners it`s false.
RUSSIANS DID NOT WANT TO SURRENDER
- They didn't want to surrended!
- No, and, like, I yelled it multiple times throughout this fight, just to surrender, surrender, but, like, none of them stood up with their hands up to surrender. You know, like, obviously, the guy in blue, you can see, because he's above the shell crater, but the other gentleman, the other enemy on this operation were in that defensive position, so, like, you couldn't see them, but if they would have stood up, hands up, they would have lived, but instead, they decided to sit there with their rifles and and hold out!
ABOUT THE RESULT OF THE OPERATION
- What do you think of the result of this operation, how many Russians were killed?
- The result of the operation was that we were able to basically control, it`s not a high ground, but north of this position is a valley, we basically were able to lock down this valley and it then goes up to the east. This gained us a foothold in the tree line that you see south of where the eastern team was, so it allowed us to launch an attack further south along that trench line from that point. In terms of enemies killed, it's somewhere between 20 to 30. Why I'm so unsure about the number of killed, because it's not published on the video, but at that time we moved Swed to another combat position, and he ended up shooting a bunch of Russians who were on the next trench line at a distance of 400-500 meters away. So we killed the Russians in these positions and in the next ones, but taking this particular position was the cornerstone to controlling this entire sector. Because it is located on a high point, on the elevation. And this position was actually held until the end of February-March time frame, although despite the fact that Ukrainian troops retreated from Pervomaisk because it was destroyed, Ukrainians held this position almost until the end of spring 2024.
HAVE YOU HAD ANY LOSSES?
- What about your losses during this operation
-Nobody was killed on this operation. We took one major wounded, which was Mossy, and then we had, like, five of us with minor wounds. Nothing, like, most of the minor wounds, we went to the, like, hospital in Pavlohrad or whatever, or Pokrovsk, and we just, like, pulled the shrapnel out, they pulled the shrapnel out, we'd just go back to base. So, like, nobody spent, the only one that went anywhere for medical treatment, like, further off the front, was Mossy and then Dirty P, who had the severe contusion. But otherwise, everyone else, we went to the local hospital, they pulled shrapnel out, we went back to base. And Zeus was in the hospital for his broken ankle.
TALK ABOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE
A quote from the New York Times about the execution: "Caspar Grosse, a German medic in the unit, said he saw the soldier (Russian - approx.) plead for medical help in broken English and Russian. It was dusk. A team member was looking for bandages.
It was then, Mr Grosse said, that a fellow soldier hobbled over and fired his weapon into the Russian soldier's torso. He slumped, still breathing. Another soldier fired — "just shot him in the head," Mr. Grosse recalled in an interview.
- They used the words of Caspar Grosse. He said he was a combat medic, and he said he took part in this battle, but I didn't see him in this video, so where was he?
-The reason you don't see Caspar on any of the six GoPro video footage or anything else is he was not on the operation. During Operation Shovel, Caspar was in the rear at the base, so he was, like, 35 kilometres away from this operation. He was nowhere near the front line.
-He wasn't present?
-No, he was not present.
-Oh, my God. He is a liar.
- Yes, correct. One hundred percent correct, we had two medics in this operation, we did not need a third medic, we needed more infantry, so we had two medics, and we did not take Caspar.
- Why, why did he do it, why is he talking about it? Is he a liar? Is he spreading false information?
-I'm not really sure. So, I don't speak with Cas anymore. Obviously, since the article came out, I'm not going to. I'm not sure why he did it, to be completely honest. I don't know. He didn't leave on the best of terms with the unit. So, he wasn't kicked out, but he was basically told to go take a vacation, take a break. He was acting really undisciplined. We found out that he was using drugs. So, we basically, in October, said, hey, you know, you need to go take a vacation for two months, three months, whatever. Until you get your head straight, and he did that. We kept in touch with him. Hi, how are you, do you have any problems with post-traumatic stress disorder, all this stuff, he never answered us. So I don't know why he did it, because he was NOT involved in any of the operations that the New York Times wrote about.
Quote about two other episodes about the execution
"The shooting of the unarmed, wounded Russian soldier is one of several killings that have unsettled the Chosen Company, one of the best-known units of international troops fighting on behalf of Ukraine.
Mr. Grosse’s witness recollection is the only available evidence of the trench killing. But his accounts of other episodes are bolstered by his contemporaneous notes, video footage and text messages exchanged by members of the unit and reviewed by The Times.
In a second episode, a Chosen member lobbed a grenade at and killed a surrendering Russian soldier who had his hands raised, video footage reviewed by The Times shows. The Ukrainian military released video of the episode to showcase its battlefield prowess, but it edited out the surrender.
In a third episode, Chosen members boasted in a group chat about killing Russian prisoners of war during a mission in October, text messages show."
- Regarding the other operation that the New York Times talked about, Cas was on vacation in the Carpathians. So, like, both operations where he's saying that he witnessed this or that, he wasn't a witness cause he was never there. He was at a base or he was on vacation.
- Unbelievable! He provoked the article and they published false information!
- Yes, this is all fabricated information that they published.
- But why didn't he talk to you?
-I don't know. I think, honestly, he's angry at us for telling me I needed to leave the unit and take a break. If he would, you know, if he had a problem with me or the unit, he could have literally myself approached or the other leadership and we would have dealt with it and figured out what was wrong. Not once did he complain about any type of execution or any of that stuff. Not only that, but we never executed anyone. We've never done that. We do not execute POWs. We do not do mercy killings. We treat the enemy, you know, like once we shoot someone and we get up to them, if they're still alive, we'll treat them for medical. Now they're a POW. Like this whole idea that we're running around executing Russians on these operations is completely false. I've been here since February of 2022, like almost at the very start of the war. And like I've done, I've been in the Ukrainian military now for, I don't know, what month we're in, like 30 months now, whatever, two and a half years. Not once have I ever had, have we ever had a complaint lodged against us. Not once did Cas or anyone else go to leadership and ask for a review of anything. And like the 59th, I know, has looked into it a little bit, but there was nothing there. Like the video footage is, it shows everything.
A quote about a Greek soldier with the call sign Zeus (timecode 33:08)
"A Greek soldier known as Zeus was at the center of all three episodes — tossing the grenade and, Mr. Grosse says, firing at the wounded Russian in the trench and bragging about another kill."
- The other problem with like the accusations is Zeus had a broken ankle from getting blown up in a HMMWV. There's no way he could have stood up and walked to anyone. You know, if you look on the drone footage, Zeus is lying next to Swed for the whole operation. He does not want stand up. He's always kneeling or lying down because he couldn't stand!
- What operations did Caspar himself take part in?
- He was on like our first assault in the Pervomaisk. He was on that one. He was on different operations. So after this one, the next trench line further south, Operation 109, he helped take part in that one. So he did do operations. I think he did four or possibly five in total. But he was not on Operation Shovel. And he was not even in our like he was on vacation in October when this other allegation came.
- What about the New York Times journalists, did they ask you for an explanation?
- Yes, and this is another thing that I have a problem with the article. So the New York Times approached us like officially in April of 2024 saying, hey, someone's accusing you guys of war crimes. I said, what operation was it on? Originally, they said the original operations. They gave me like a list of five operations saying like we executed people on five different operations. And then I said, what operations? They said, you know, Pervo three or Pervo four. So both of those operations were foreman defensive operations where nothing happened. The guys got artillery. They sat there for three days. They left. So like their information from the start of this was all wrong. And then at one point we had them, you know, they came to Kyiv and we sat down. We showed them the drone footage. We showed them the footage of Swed. And then we said, hey, we have, you know, 30 other videos, the ones we were showing you earlier. We have 30 other videos to watch. And they didn't watch any of them. They watched two videos, made up their mind, and that was it. They chose to believe somebody who wasn't on the operation. And we showed them like a lot of evidence showing that Cas was not even there during these operations. But they still decided to write what basically amounts to like a tabloid hit piece.
NO RUSSIAN SURRENDERED ON THE VIDEO
- In the video, we don't see any Russian who wants to surrender?
-No. No. Not one time were any Russians approach us with their hands up. Did they yell anything that was audible that you could understand? Like they fought.
-And you have the footage from six GoPro. Right?
- That's right!
-And you can demonstrate it if the New York Times or somebody else tried to prove this information. Six GoPro for 12 warriors. It's very, very high quantity for understanding!
-Yeah. And that again, like the New York Times watched two videos when we, you know, just like I was showing you, like we have all this footage, but they watched two videos and then that was all they watched. They didn't want to see anymore. And we brought the whole hard drive, the computer, everything to them!
- We see all the Russians, and we don't see any of them trying to surrender, they are still fighting!
- Yeah, and like even on the drone video you see, you know, the Russian that was running at us had his hands up for like two seconds, he realises that, you know, we're foreigners or not Russians. And then he just TURNS AROUND AND RUNS. You know, one of the guys in the shell crater who's like sitting down so you can't see him, puts his hands up, puts his hands back on his weapon. So like a lot of this, like we couldn't see any of that first off because we're on the ground. We're not a drone 500 metres up in the air. But like if you're going to put your hands up, you put your hands up and you stand up. You don't sit down in a bunker or a fighting position with your weapon on your lap and go like this and then put your hands down. Like they never clearly surrendered. They never clearly tried to. They never attempted to. It was just, you know, and they were still shooting at us.
AN ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT THE HEROES OF THE VIDEO
- I think that it's, this video is very irritated for Russians. And I understand that try to discredit this video and the heroes on this video. And they try to demonstrate that you are not heroes, you are criminals, as I see.
- Yeah! Like ever since this video came out, I mean, it looks bad on the Russians in general, because like, you know, they're always saying our military superior to the West, this and that. And then you have a bunch of guys roll up on HMMWVs and, you know, kill 20, you know, kill a platoon size element without taking a single loss. Like we took zero dead. So it looks bad on the Russians just in general, because we were able to basically not, not even take a trench line at the zero line, but we took their second line. So like, they're trying to discredit it from the get go, because it makes them look incompetent. And again, you know, we're pretty well known from our previous operations in this area and like the Russians just don't like us in general. So, I mean, everything, they're going to try to discredit it and say, oh, we're war criminals or we're mercenaries. But like, we're not mercenaries. We're contracted soldiers under the Ukrainian military. We don't execute people like we take our job serious. We're professionals, you know.
COULD CASPAR HAVE WORKED FOR THE RUSSIANS?
- What do you think in general about this provocation, could Caspar Grosse have some communication or coordination with Russians for blame one of the best volunteer units of Western volunteers here in Ukraine?
- I don't think he's working with the Russians, like, directly. But the biggest thing is, like, and I don't think he thought about this when he decided to, you know, do this. But, like, because he fabricated this story of him being an eyewitness on this operation and us executing, you know, prisoners, which didn't happen. But because he said it happened and because the New York Times wrote about it, you know, he's indirectly helping the Russians. I don't think he's working with the Russians at all, but his lies 100% have helped the Russians. Because the day that this got published, it was all over, you know, Russian media, Belarusian media, Iranian media, you know, it was everywhere. And, you know, we've gotten, like, death threats about it. Now there's, you know, like, it didn't help us at all, but it definitely helped the Russians. And I don't think, again, he's not working for the Russians, but his lies help the Russians.
-And what do you do for demonstrate, for demonstrate your proofs for New York Times, for correct this information and for they, for they finish this situation very, it's very, very sad situation and it's a provocation.
- Yes, we're going to try to fix that by releasing all the footage and also the chat log that shows everyone involved in the operation, because when this operation was going on, we had a chat in the signal where Kasper was, talking in a group chat, but if you're involved in an operation, how can you be talking in a group chat at the same moment? You can't stop in the middle of a firefight to send a stupid message, we have evidence that he was in the rear, so we're going to make all of this public, hopefully get the New York Times to retract the story, and then we're going to look for all the legal avenues that can fix this situation. We're going to hopefully get the New York Times to retract the story. And then, you know, we're obviously going to seek all legal avenues we can to set the record straight on this.
THE ARTICLE WAS MADE TO COLLECT VIEWS
- What do you think? Why the New York Times New York Times didn't talk to you about this? Without evidence? Without studying the whole situation?
Like, my personal opinion, and I don't know if this is true or not, but like, my personal opinion is they were told a story by Caspar Grosse, the one that was false and not true, about foreigners, you know, committing war crimes. And they just saw, you know, oh, this is going to get a lot of views, like, I don't think they, I think it was biassed from the start of the whole investigation that they were doing. And once they, you know, heard a rumour that we're committing war crimes, for them that's a big-ticket item. Because people in, because the media in the U.S. doesn't really care to report about, you know, Russians bombing your hospitals, the Ukrainian POWs coming back looking like they came from Auschwitz. Because they know or they think that the Americans won't react about it. But the minute that there's some supposed war crimes happening and there's this eyewitness testimony and all this, you know, it's like a rage piece. Like, it's a piece that the New York Times could publish and a lot of people are going to look at it. And it creates emotions, but at the end of the day, like, it's all fake. Like, it's not true. It's, you know, it's just not true. So, like, I think they just published it because they knew it was going to create a lot of emotions, whether it was true or not, and that people would view it. So, for them it's all about views, it's media. It's not about the truth.
-Did they try to prove his article EARLIER than they published it?
-They've reviewed two out of like 30-plus videos that we have. I also showed them the chat log showing that Casper was in fact not on the operation but was at base with date and time stamps. They ignored that. This whole article that they built out of these accusations by guys who were actually not on the operations and weren't even in that area during these operations. Like, it's negligent. Like, they acted in, like, honestly, in my opinion, it's negligent on how they did this whole thing. They didn't look at the facts. They didn't care about the facts.
All they looked for was, like, the sensationalist headline, because there are foreigners involved, and it's an accusation. But, like, if they would have sat down and actually looked at everything that we provided them, they would understand, like, what Casper is saying is false like it's not even close to it and what the other guy Ben was saying was false like I mean it's just like it's very obvious if they would have just sat down and looked at it but they didn't care honestly in my opinion they didn't care at all they just wanted the headline.
-I am surprised if you think every time that American media and New York Times was the biggest newspaper in the world, in the Western world, that they try to prove and look for proof during his work. And now you say that they made a false article.
-Correct. So, and this is something that's been, you know, so like you see in Western media all the time where people are saying you know why are we watching like mainstream media and this and that and it's because like these legacy news corporations like the New York Times, CNN, Fox News whatever you want to say like the big corporations like their integrity is lacking nowadays they go for sensation they go for you know your typical short attention span article with lack of investigation with lack of journalistic integrity and all this and this is like a big problem in the US right now and in a lot of the world it's just the news organizations are not doing their due diligence and they aren't you know investigating things as much as they used to in the past. And they can fix this whole situation in general with media and people not believing mainstream media by just sitting down, taking things slower, and understanding you don't have to release a two-bit tabloid-type story to the public regardless of truth or no truth. If they actually wanted the truth, they could get it, but they don't care about that anymore in media. Everything in media now is about how many clicks they get to run ad revenue.
HOW VOLUNTEERS WILL PROTECT THEIR NAME
-But what about the justice? Could you defend yourself in the United States? Cause they made very serious accusations about war crimes, about killing. It's very serious. And they don't have any proof about it. And they say it about the US citizens and about the Europeans the false fake information.
- At least as far as the US like United States goes we are going to do everything that we possibly can in regards to like legal actions or whatever we can do on this but the biggest problem in the US is we have a really like our Constitution allows freedom of speech up to a certain point it's mainly going to be up to the legal system to decide what we can do to get this fixed a lot of these bigger media corporations like the New York Times Fox News CNN they don't care if they're wrong or not because at the end of the day they know the average person isn't going to try to sue them or isn't going to try to take legal action because they're just so big. You know it costs a lot of money to try to work things out in the legal courts, which I mean we're going to attempt to try to do, but we will see. The U.S. it's really hard just because of our constitutional rights for freedom of speech and everything else, but we're going to try. As far as Europe goes, I don't know. Like, each country in Europe is different, so I don't know if we're going to take legal action in each country or what we're going to do yet there. We're currently discussing things with lawyers and everything else to figure out what the next step is if they decide they do not want to actually look at it and fix their negligence.
-Do you have lawyers in the United States to defend you from this provocation?
-We're currently talking to a few different law firms. We have not actually chosen a final law firm yet. We're weighing the, you know, benefit of each law firm out and then seeing which route is the best to take. You know, because like this could take, they could retract the story in 30 days, it could take 6 months, it could take a year. So yeah, we're proceeding cautiously on this and then we'll go with whatever lawyer we choose or whatever the legal people say what we'll do, so we just got to take out time and we`ll continue to fight on the Ukrainian battlefield. Now we'll just also be fighting, you know, to clear our name. It's not a big deal. We can do both.
HOW MANY NATIONALITIES PARTICIPATED IN THE ASSAULT
- Please tell us what nationalities of soldiers took part in Operation Shovel.
- There were representatives from such countries as Ireland, Lithuania, America, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Greece. I forgot about one. An Estonian, nine.
-The Cossack told me that one of them was Israeli.
- Yes, 10 nationalities were involved in this operation!
WHO IS RYAN O'LEARY
- Tell us something about yourself, how old are you, where are you from?
- I'm originally from America. I'm actually from the Midwest. So I live like, if you drive through, if you drive from like Lviv to Kyiv, and you see all that rural area, like it looks just like where I'm from in Iowa. I'm 38 this year. I've been doing the military stuff for since I was 17. So you're looking at almost 20 years.
- Did you have the experience of close combat in the American Army?
-So not in the American Army. So I mean, we were trained on it. But it was never like, you know, shooting people like five metres. Most of my engagements in Iraq or Afghanistan with the US military were like 500-600 metres. So pretty big distance. I left the US military in 2014. And then I went and lived in Iraq for about five years.
- Five years in Iraq?
-Yeah. So I participated in the fight against ISIS, which was a lot more like closer combat, like it was it was up close. It was close range. There were ambushes, there was all sorts of stuff. So I was able to, you know, get acquainted with the difference, the different level of like violence and like the aggression and all that. But even so, when I was over here at the start of the war, so I fought in like Moshun, Irpin, over near Borodianka, so like the level of like, like close quarters combat that was at the very start of the war was insane.
COMPARING IRAQ AND UKRAINE
- Could you compare the war in Iraq and the war in Ukraine?
-Yeah, so there's like actually a lot big differences. So outside of, so obviously the combat is 100% different, because like, the Ukraine war is peer-on-peer, the Iraq war was more of like counter-terrorist, but the other big difference is like how like the military bases are. So like in Iraq or Afghanistan, you would have these like sprawling, you know, military bases that stretch for kilometres, you know, hot showers, somebody cooks you food every day, toilets with running water, you know, like shops, like everything.
You want to go get a Snickers bar, you can get a Snickers. And then, you know, you go to like our military base that we had in the east, you know, we could go to maybe the store like once or twice a week, but otherwise, you know, there was no running water, you showered with cold water from like a bucket, no AC, no heat, you're living underground with like 12 other dudes, like it was just like a camping trip.
Even though it was like, you know, there's no amenities, so like just because you didn't have it, you know, we still had high morale, because like you find things to do, and like the Ukrainians would always like, our command would always be like, hey, look what we brought you, and it'd be like, I mean, sometimes it wasn't good, it was like canned fish or something, and I'm not a fan of fish, but like they would always try to bring stuff into the front for you, so like even if you're sitting in like a trench or something, like somebody else would be like, hey, look what I got, and then you guys like, you share it with each other.But in general, yes, there is a big difference!
The big difference, like the biggest difference is just how like the environments are different, you know, the U.S. spent like millions upon millions building out these bases everywhere, even like the smaller bases, like they used to call them combat operating, like combat outposts, like would spend, you know, thousands of dollars on it, and then we would spend, instead of thousands of dollars, we spent seven days with shovels, you know, it is what it is, but like even though the conditions aren't very good, you know, our morale was still high, you know, like our, we, I feel really lucky that we were with the command we had in the 59th, because, you know, you hear about sometimes having bad leadership, our command was really good at, you know, giving us the proper intelligence so that we could plan the operations, and then after we would plan it, we would then, you know, present it to the command, and they'd be like, that's going to get you killed, redo it, so like there was a lot of good communications, and you don't really see that too often with foreign units and Ukrainians, so I feel, you know, I'm glad I was in the 59th, it was probably one of the best experiences I've had this war, Vadym was an extremely good brigade commander, Kozak was a good company commander for us, like we learned a lot, so like we taught the Ukrainian stuff, and they taught us stuff, so it has helped keep a lot of our guys alive.
WHEN RYAN FOUNDED HIMSELF IN UKRAINE
- When did you get to Ukraine?
-I was here at the very start. So so I wasn't here for like the day before the war, but I was here at the start.
- Wow!
-Yeah. And like, I mean, at the start of the war. So, when it kicked off and Zelenskyy said in the authorities basically were like, bring if you're a fighting age male and you want to fight or even like I think I think they just said, if you're Ukrainian and you want to fight, show up at the nearest block post or it might have been draft center or wherever.
But then like when you would drive through the villages going to the front line, whether it was Moshun, Irpin or wherever, and you would see like all the civilians lining up to, you know, join a territorial unit, which at the time wasn't TDF, but it was like your local defence forces. Like it was a good morale booster. But yeah, I've been here since the start.
I fought in Moshun, Irpin, Borodianka, Zaporizhia front line, Bakhmut, the Avdivka sector, the Kharkiv counteroffensive. I've done boat operations in the Black Sea. Not keen on those, but you know, I've been to basically a majority of the front line. So it's been a long two years, but you know, it is what it is. We can win this. It's just going to take time, you know.
-Do you still fighting like a stormtrooper?
-Yeah. So, you know, Chosen was made to be like a storm unit. We're never going to stop storming trenches. We're now adding more of like a drone element to it and then adding some other stuff. But yeah, we're always going to storm trenches, villages. It's what we do, we are good at.
- How did you find each other and how did you collect up in one unit?
-Yeah, so originally Chosen in like 2022 was like eight of us. It was just a group of eight of us that were going to the front lines with the International Legion. And, you know, we had Swed, our sniper, and then we had like some other guys who were like heavily experienced like myself. And after the Kharkiv counter-offensive, we ended up joining a different one. We helped build out the 2nd International Battalion. And then a lot of the guys that filtered in that had military experience since that point have just been with us.
-We're all here for a reason, we're all here for a purpose. And you know that a lot of it is supporting democracy, support Ukraine. And like I was saying earlier, not a lot of people leave Chosen. Less than maybe five people have ever left Chosen and not came back. Everyone comes back. A lot of guys will take a three-month break because they don't like winter. That's fine. When winter's over, they come back in the spring. So like yeah, we have a pretty tight unit because everyone has been here for like a year or 18 months or two years. So it's a brotherhood.
- Brotherhood, yes. The most important thing in the world, yes. Thank you!
- Thank you.
-Thank you for this operation. Thank you for your service and it's something special and it's a very important story for us. And I hope that the New York Times will correct, they try to write the truth next time about Chosen company, about you, about your mates.
-I hope so. We'll see if they correct it. Thank you very much.
