Bryson Woolsey is trading in his chef’s apron and the luxury of home for ammunition and danger to help people in Ukraine during their time of crisis.
The 33-year-old cook from Powell River, B.C., said he “dropped the frying pan” to answer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy‘s call for foreigners to join an “international brigade” to defeat Russia. “It’s not my desire to go into combat and just shoot people.
That’s not the reason,” he said in an interview. “There’s something happening right now, and I have the capacity to help in some way.” While heads of state hammer out sanctions to slow down and stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, people from all walks of life are answering Kyiv’s call to arms regardless of personal risk and training.
Yet while Ottawa has largely adopted a hands-off approach, saying the decision to fight is up to individuals, some are worried about the potential legal and national security questions of having a large number of Canadians head off to war. Read more: Ukrainian-Canadians eager to volunteer on medical front lines amid Russian invasion Author and historian Tyler Wentzell, who has studied Canadians’ involvement in previous foreign conflicts, said it will be interesting to watch how people respond to this request for help considering Canada is home to the third-largest Ukrainian population. “Foreign volunteers have a way of making things seem a little bit less foreign,” said Wentzell, who has written a book on Canadians fighting in the Spanish Civil War. “So, if these volunteers go … we’re going to start to have Canadians sending back TikTok videos from the front lines.