Did This News Crew Capture Footage of a US Soldier in Ukraine?

Over the course of the war that is being waged in Eastern Ukraine, very few places have been more contested than the coastal city of Mariupol. The city has been subjected to numerous attacks and skirmishes by the pro-Russian forces of the Donetsk Republic, including a recent offensive that began last Saturday after a civilian neighborhood was shelled, killing 29 people in the process. As of now, it is unclear who was responsible for this indiscriminate attack.

One thing is clear though. The West, and the United States in the particular, has no desire to let any part of Ukraine fall into Russian hands. Some would argue that the US military may even be secretly aiding the Ukrainian war effort (and sometimes, not so secretly). Given the current status of Russian-American relations, it wouldn’t be surprising to find that both sides are actively fighting a proxy war in Eastern Ukraine, and may have boots on the ground in the region.

Recent footage from a Ukrainian news team may have just found evidence for these secret soldiers, as they were filming what they thought was a Ukrainian fighter in the city of Mariupol. The video claims to have been taken a little over a week before the city was shelled, and subsequently invaded by pro-Russian forces.

The soldier in question can be seen wearing a Ukrainian uniform and carrying an AK of some kind(though the gun is hard to see, it appears to have a wooden stock and an AK style magazine), but as they approached him for questioning, he replied “outta my face” in English. You can see and hear the exchange for yourself below.

As you can clearly hear, he’s not only speaking English, but his dialect sounds very American. His uniform also appears to have some slight differences. Granted, the poor state of the Ukrainian military means they probably doesn’t have strict uniform standards at the moment, but you can see he’s wearing what appears to be a tan baseball cap.

On most battlefields, these are almost exclusively worn by private military contractors. Do a google image search on “us military contractor” and you’ll see what I mean. By contrast, an image search for the Ukrainian military will show you pictures of men wearing helmets, black beanies, and ushankas.

The choice of weaponry wouldn’t be that unusual either. While American weapons like the M4 are a common sight for US forces, most private military contractors carry rifles that are most commonly found in their area of operation. They don’t have the full logistical support of the US military, so for them the best weapon to carry is the one that has a lot of ammo and spare parts in their area.

By themselves, these details might not mean much, but when put together it paints a very suspicious picture. To me at least, it appears that the US government has sent private military contractors into Eastern Ukraine to fight the Russian separatists in some capacity.

Make no mistake, the Cold War never died. It’s just coming back from a 20 year hiatus, and is now being fought through a proxy war in Ukraine. The only difference now is that it’s being waged by private contractors, so as not to alarm the American public with another war. As the old saying goes “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.