Why are British soldiers deserting to fight in Ukraine?

When my brother was an infantry officer in the early 1990s the soldiers under his command were hard men. Most hailed from the north-east of England; in an earlier era they might have mined coal for a living. They smoked and drank and swore, and they were superb soldiers, as they proved in South Armagh and in Bosnia. It’s safe to assume these men would have struggled as infantrymen in today’s British army. 

Even the word ‘infantrymen’ would cause problems today. Last year, the Ministry of Defence recruited for a director of diversity and inclusion (salary £110,000 per annum, compared to the £20,000 an infantryman is paid). Meanwhile, in November, it was disclosed that the RAF had dropped ‘airmen’ and ‘airwomen’ in favour of ‘aviator’. This followed the decision by the RAF in 2020 to promote gender-neutral pronouns. 

‘The RAF actively promotes diversity and inclusion throughout its ranks in a number of ways,’ explained a spokesperson.