When your son has decided to join the foreign legion of a country that's currently at war, you probably don’t have much head space for the mundane things like luggage restrictions on flights to Poland. But Lucy’s 26-year-old son has enlisted in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion and is due to fly to Poland in the next few days. She’s terrified for him, but she’s also proud of him. And as Lucy told Joe Duffy on Liveline, Ryanair are the only airline to fly to Poland and here’s the problem:
"He’ll be fighting, he’ll be on the frontline in Kyiv, sometime Thursday, latest Friday. But the problem is that they have specific items that they have to bring with them. For example, they have to bring body armour, they have to bring helmets. If they don’t have them, they won’t be getting them over there."
When her son shows up at the airport, his bag is going to be over the 20kg limit, but he has to bring everything that’s in with him. He can’t split things into two bags, because in Ukraine he’ll only be allowed one. So Lucy is hoping that Ryanair – who, she says, have offered to fly 100,000 refugees out from Poland – will treat her son as a special case.
Joe wanted to know why Lucy’s son was enlisting with the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Has he ever been to Ukraine? No. He’s got a military background, though, so he will be an asset. Has Lucy had a conversation with her son about the potential consequences of his volunteering to join the fight? Yes:
"He’s prepared to die. We’ve had to do his will and everything. He’s prepared to die. It’s – I might not sound too distressed now, but on Wednesday I’m going to be in absolute bits because I know I could be saying goodbye to my son forever."
Lucy explained that the war that we’re all watching where civilians are being targeted, where children are being killed, is barbaric and her son felt he couldn’t stay away, given his military training.
"He can’t sit there, knowing that he’s trained and he’s able to help these people and sit there and just watch it on TV. He can’t do that."
Lucy’s son has two siblings and Joe wondered if they had tried to persuade him not to travel to a warzone. No, is the answer:
"And I won’t try and persuade him either. Because I know people might think I’m crazy, but this is what he does and this is who he is. I can’t – I couldn’t keep it on my conscience telling him not to go, knowing that it’s something that he said is like a calling. He said, 'Ma, I have to go. I can’t sit here and watch this on the News and watch these people die."
Is he good at what he does? Joe asks. He’s very good, Lucy says. His nickname from other campaigns was Rambo:
"But that means nothing when you’re going against Putin. It doesn’t matter how good you are, you drop a bomb, it doesn’t matter who you are, you can be special forces, it makes no difference."
You can hear Joe’s full conversation with Lucy – as well as other callers’ thoughts on the ongoing war in Ukraine – by going here.