Dave Smith says no one in his family was too surprised when he told them he was going to quit his job as a major in the Canadian Armed Forces to fight in the muddy trenches of eastern Ukraine.
“I actually never had to explain it to them. My brother, when I told him — I was on a phone call with him and my sister — and he said something to the effect of ‘I can’t believe you’re not there already,’” the 40-year-old Toronto native says, speaking with Global News while on leave in London, England.
“I never really had to give anyone a reason, and all the reasons I gave my wife, she accepted but was still upset about.”
The last deployment of his 15 years with Canada’s military was as part of a task force in Europe helping Ukraine deal with Russia‘s full-scale invasion in 2022.
But that support role wasn’t enough for Smith, who headed to Ukraine after resigning in March 2023.
Former Canadian Army major Dave Smith digs a trench in eastern Ukraine while fighting with the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment.
Dave Smith
“You can’t wait for someone to go tell you to defend freedom anymore. You’re not about to get written orders with travel instructions, like, ‘Buy some body armour and get on a plane and go to where the fight’s happening,’” Smith says.
“Because otherwise the people that end up doing it are, like, Ukrainian IT professionals, who are not trained — and their heart’s in the right place, and they will fight until their dying breath, but they’re going to get killed.”
Smith is one of many non-Ukrainians from across the globe who have voluntarily joined the fight against Russia’s invasion.
In March 2023, The New York Times reported that around 1,500 men were fighting for the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine.
Former Canadian Army major Dave Smith with fellow members of the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment in eastern Ukraine.
Dave Smith
Smith, though, is fighting for a mostly Belarussian unit that technically sits outside the International Legion.
The Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment was formed by a group of supporters of the political opposition movement in Belarus, who see Ukraine’s fate as intertwined with that of their own country.
Longtime Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko is a staunch ally of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and he allowed Russian troops to base themselves in Belarus for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Smith says the Belarussians are not there for a sense of adventure but as part of a fight against autocracy in Europe.
“They’re all kind of ideologically aligned with how serious I took the war. So I joined their unit,” he says.
Ukraine pays foreign fighters; Smith was given with a Ukrainian debit card when he signed up.
The Kremlin calls soldiers like him “mercenaries,” but as he explains, if it were about money, he’d still be in his old job.
“You can survive in Ukraine on it, definitely in eastern Ukraine, but trying to bankroll my life back in Canada, it’s hard,” says Smith, whose wife lives in their home in Ottawa.
“As for Putin calling us mercenaries, he does not understand how ideologically motivated the foreign fighters in Ukraine are.”
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Smith says he learned some Ukrainian when he first arrived in Ukraine, only to be deployed to the Russian-speaking unit.
Nonetheless, he says the simplicity of trench warfare means that there isn’t much of a language barrier, and he can get by on a mixture of English and a set of basic Russian phrases.
He says the cold and snow are relatively easy to deal with for any well-trained Canadian soldier. It’s the November mud of the steppe that gets him.
“The mud in Ukraine defies physics. It gets everywhere. It’s on everything,” he says.
“It slows you down to the point where neither us nor the Russians can really manoeuvre.”
Dave Smith says Ukrainian mud ‘defies physics…. It gets everywhere. It’s on everything.’.
Dave Smith
He laughs as he recalls his early days as a Canadian soldier in CFB Wainwright and CFB Gagetown, resenting having to learn how to dig trenches.
“We were always like, ‘This is stupid. We’re never going to do this again. We’re going to be fighting terrorists the rest of our careers, or insurgencies, or something.’ And all the old guys who remembered the Cold War were like, ‘No, you have to practise clearing trenches,’” he says.
“They were right and I was wrong. It’s that simple.”
In many ways, Smith’s nine months in Ukraine have been a 20th-century war experience, although there are some key differences.
Drones change the rules of what soldiers can do in trenches. One mistake that flags your position can prove fatal.
Canadian Dave Smith on patrol with the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment in eastern Ukraine.
Dave Smith
“In the nine months I was in Ukraine I probably went to seven or eight funerals, and those were just the funerals I could go to,” he says.
“At a certain point, everything just becomes like surreal and hilarious, you know, like I just had to go pee and now there’s a 122-millimetre shell flying over my head.”
Smith says he and his fellow soldiers are only deployed into the trenches for three or four days at a time before rotating out for rest.
Any longer in a trench, he says, would be “unsustainable.”
Fighting against fatigue
After nine months of fighting, Smith is taking a break elsewhere in Europe, to see his wife and to rest.
He had to quit Ukraine’s armed forces to be allowed leave the country, but he fully intends to return and rejoin in late January.
Smith hopes western nations will continue to support Ukraine too, despite future U.S. military support being tied up in Congress in Washington.
Former Canadian Armed Forces major Dave Smith takes a break in a trench in eastern Ukraine while fighting for Ukraine with the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment.
Dave Smith
“I am not really convinced the consensus is as cracked as it’s being portrayed in the English language traditional media,” Smith says.
“I think it’s just become a political lever that can be pulled, just like anything else.”
Despite Smith’s commitment to the fight on the ground, he is not especially optimistic about how the war will develop.
He thinks neither side can win the war on the battlefield, because he believes Putin will throw almost infinite resources at the fight and Ukrainians will never surrender their freedom.
“Ukrainians are never, ever, ever going to do that, and nor should they be expected to. So Russia can’t win on the battlefield,” he says.
“I do think there will be an end to this war, but I don’t think it will be the decisive military victory that people want it to be, because that rarely ever happens.”
Smith also thinks negotiating with Russia would be “a horrible idea” for Ukraine.
His analysis likely equates to a war with little end in sight, but Smith is up for the fight.
“If we don’t stop Putin now, the world’s dictators will see that they can use violence to impose their will on the rest of us.”
PARIS (AP) — French judicial authorities are investigating the disappearance of two Paralympic athletes from Congo who recently competed in the Paris Games, the prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Thursday.
Prosecutors opened the investigation on Sept. 7, after members of the athletes’ delegation warned authorities of their disappearance two days before.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that shot putter Mireille Nganga and Emmanuel Grace Mouambako, a visually impaired sprinter who was accompanied by a guide, went missing on Sept. 5, along with a third person.
The athletes’ suitcases were also gone but their passports remained with the Congolese delegation, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
The Paralympic Committee of the Democratic Republic of Congo did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.
Nganga — who recorded no mark in the seated javelin and shot put competitions — and Mouambako were Congo’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, organizers said.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
