Ukraine crisis: The comic travelling 5,000 miles to fight

Just a few weeks ago, Anthony Walker was a college student and comedian — known among his 100,000+ social media followers for relentlessly trolling Donald Trump’s supporters and, more recently, protesting truckers at home.

Now the Canadian is on the Polish-Ukrainian border – and says he’s ready to fight and join a growing number of foreigners who say they’re heeding Ukraine’s call for volunteers.

Mr Walker, 29, speaking from south-eastern Poland near the border with Ukraine, says he was motivated to turn his life upside down in Toronto – including his three children – less than a week ago, moved by war scenes on TV.

“My wife and I saw the news from Ukraine, the pictures, the videos. None of it was good,” he told the BBC. “I figured – if this was Canada, we would need someone to help us.”

His initial reaction, he added, was reinforced by a dawning realization that he was “lucky” to have been born in a stable, relatively prosperous country that has never experienced war at home.

“We would never be attacked like that. We have that luxury,” he said. “I have no ties to Ukraine. I am not Ukrainian. I am a human. I think that’s a good reason to come here.”

Mr. Walker has no military experience. In fact, he says he was ruled medically unfit for hemophilia three years ago and turned down by the Canadian Armed Forces.

Instead, he has held a variety of jobs and trades, including carpentry and truck driving. He’s also a certified paramedic – a skill he hopes to use in Ukraine. Most recently, he studied cyber security and hacking at a Canadian university.

For now, Mr Walker plans to stay at the Polish border for a few days while waiting for several dozen former volunteers, including former Canadian soldiers and others from the UK, South Korea and the US. On Monday he said he was helping deliver supplies to the Ukrainian military by truck.

He then plans to travel to the city of Lviv in western Ukraine before going to the front.

The border crossing between Poland and Ukraine is currently inundated with refugees trying to leave the country.

“Some have waited in line for four days to get to this side of the border,” he said. “You’re hungry. You’re cold. It’s not a good situation for you.”

Since announcing his intention to travel to Ukraine, Mr Walker says he has been inundated with messages from other volunteers hoping to follow suit.

What started as a trickle of news has turned into a flood, particularly after calls for foreign volunteers by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior officials, including Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

The calls have sparked thousands of messages on social media platforms like Reddit and Discord from people around the world.

Although the number of volunteers remains unclear, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UK Vadym Prystaiko said an “overwhelming” number of foreigners “are demanding to be allowed to fight for Ukraine”.

While Ukraine has said it will arm all volunteers, details remain sparse as to who exactly they are looking for or how they will be trained, organized and deployed.

On Sunday, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly was quoted by the Globe and Mail as saying that although she spoke of Canadians of Ukrainian descent, it was up to individual Canadians to decide whether to volunteer and fight in Ukraine.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has also chosen not to discourage people, saying Brits “can make their own decisions” on whether to go.

While Mr Walker supports this effort, he warns that potential volunteers should be realistic about what this entails, from the high costs and lost income to the realities of fighting amid the Russian invasion.

He’s also concerned about his own digital security, saying he redirects images posted to social media via the hacktivist network Anonymous to have them stripped of metadata before being posted by a third party.

He believes many of the volunteers are young and gung-ho, with romanticized and sometimes fanciful ideas about war. Veteran soldiers on online volunteer discussion forums have warned that untrained and unprepared volunteers could become more of a liability than a help.

“If you want to come here because you think it’s like ‘Call of Duty’ — don’t do it,” he said, referring to a popular war-themed video game. “Kill grenades and bullets. This is not a video game.”

Asked if he was concerned about the prospect of facing the Russian army in Ukraine, Mr Walker says initial nervousness has given way to determination, particularly after reports that a child was killed after artillery barrages hit a children’s cancer hospital in Kyiv had met.

“I will do my best to avenge this child,” he said. “I feel like I’m doing the right thing.”