WASHINGTON, April 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The US Defense Department warned Americans against going to Ukraine to join the fight against Russia’s invasion after a former marine was killed.
“We continue to urge Americans not to go to Ukraine… this is an active war zone, this is not the place to be traveling to,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the day after reports emerged of the death of Willy Joseph Cancel.
Cancel’s mother, Rebecca Cabrera, said her 22-year-old son was killed on Monday in Ukraine while working with a private military contractor, having traveled there in mid-March.
She said her son’s body had not yet been recovered. He is survived by his wife and their child, who is not yet one-year-old.
His wife, Brittany Cancel, said that her husband “was eager to volunteer” to go to Ukraine and “went there wanting to help people.”
Kirby expressed condolences for Cancel’s family and said he understood his “altruistic motives,” while underscoring that there are ways to support Ukraine “in a safe, effective way.”
He added that the Pentagon did not have information on how Cancel was killed.
Early after Russia’s invasion, launched on February 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for foreigners to volunteer to fight for his country.
In March, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said tens of thousands of volunteers from dozens of countries had answered the call.
London on Thursday reported what was believed to be the first death of a Briton fighting in the conflict. Another Briton is also missing.
THE HAGUE: Meanwhile, Britain will send a team of war crimes investigators to Ukraine to help experts probing atrocities committed since Russia’s invasion, the UK’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.
Evidence of atrocities has emerged since Moscow’s Feb 24 invasion of its pro-Western neighbour, and calls are mounting for war crimes probes.
Truss said Britain would send a team to the country in May to work with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is spearheading an active war crimes probe.
“We will be sending in a British evidence-collecting team working with Ukrainian authorities working with the ICC,” Truss said on a visit to the court in The Hague.
The investigators will seek to gather a “wide range of evidence, witness statements, forensic evidence and video evidence”, Truss said.
“We’re also using British intelligence to help show the links between what is happening on the frontline and the Russian authorities, because it’s important that everybody in the chain of command is held to account,” she said.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan visited Ukraine earlier this month, travelling to the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where at least 20 bodies were discovered on April 2.
Khan at the time said a forensic team would be working in Bucha, adding that Ukraine as a whole was a “crime scene”.
His office said it was “grateful for the strong support of the United Kingdom”, including a recent donation of 1 million pound (one million euros) to the ICC.
Dutch foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra, who met Truss Thursday, also said the Netherlands would dispatch 30 investigators to Ukraine, mainly from the military police.
The investigators will concentrate their probe around Kyiv for two weeks under the banner of the ICC. — NNN-AGENCIES
