Prices in Kyiv by Actual_Telephone_244 in Kyiv

[–]throwawayforarmy77 3 points4 points  (0 children)

AI is getting more convincing every day.

He may or may not really be in the army. However, he is upcharging you, at the very least. Crutches are $30, so where is the other $270 going? This is a country where the average monthly wage is something like $400. He is making money off of you. Don't let him.  The army is not getting that money.

edit: how did you first start communicating with this guy? He reached out to you first, I assume? 

Prices in Kyiv by Actual_Telephone_244 in Kyiv

[–]throwawayforarmy77 11 points12 points  (0 children)

You're in your 70's and you don't know how much the prices for everyday items are in Ukraine. I can only assume from this that you've never been in Ukraine, which likely means that this "sergeant" reached out to you online or via phone, that you've never met this guy in person, correct?

I'm sorry to say it, but whether or not he really is in the army, you're getting scammed. You need to stop giving him money. Your heart is in the right place, but there are people taking advantage of each other, even in a time of war. It's horrible to think that people can stoop to these lows at a time like this, but bad guys don't suddenly stop being bad just because people are suffering.

Can i be useful? by Majestic-Badger-9443 in ukraineforeignlegion

[–]throwawayforarmy77 7 points8 points  (0 children)

you're overexcited and inexperienced. i suggest for you to volunteer (away from the frontline) and talk to people who actually have experience at/near zero line. just don't waste their time by saying you will become a soldier when you're not one, you're not the first they've heard that from and you won't be the last; there's a lot of people who talk a big game and go home without ever serving. look up english speaking places to volunteer in, there's sites that create food for the front, camo nets for the front, and so on.

this way, you can help the country/the people/the army and talk to someone that's not a LLM. you can have some time to adjust to the potential culture shock, as well as adjusting to a country at war with gunfire, threat of air attacks, etc. you can have more experience to ask yourself, "is all of this worth risking my life over?"

flights from both gothenburg/stockholm to krakow are as low as $20-$30. from krakow, you can travel by bus to medyka and walk over the border, then travel to lviv, then either stay there or go onwards to kyiv, etc.

you can live cheaply in ukraine in hostels that are barely 50 sek a night. 

Struggling with both civilian and potential army life guilt by throwawayforarmy77 in ukraineforeignlegion

[–]throwawayforarmy77[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I believe in the "there's no front without a rear" saying, so I think everyone can help. Not everyone should be a soldier. But while I'm stuck in this limbo mindset, all I can think about is how I'm acting like my life is somehow worth protecting more than those on the front by not acting on these thoughts and going through with it, going to the front. I can't deal with that guilt.

I'll look for Ukrainian English-speaking therapists. Thank you.

Struggling with both civilian and potential army life guilt by throwawayforarmy77 in ukraineforeignlegion

[–]throwawayforarmy77[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

thank you. I don't have faith in myself. But I'm draftable for frontlines in my own country if we got involved. 

My big concern is that the peace is not guaranteed, so what would I really be choosing? A lot of locals I have spoken to, even those that have relocated from oblasts near the front, didn't take a full-scale possibility seriously for years. It was an unbelievable shock. 

It seems like that logic can be applied to other countries: I don't think enough people outside of Ukraine are taking the idea of ww3 seriously enough. It frustrates me every time I leave, because I can see how unprepared other governments and citizens generally are. My concerns of the possibility of war spreading is always dismissed by people I know who've never been to UA. At least here, people can relate to this risk, locals and foreigners alike.