A British soldier was found dead in a Ukrainian reservoir with his hands tied. Nobody will say why

Telegraph

7 hours ago

Ever since Vladimir Putin's tanks rolled into Ukraine, a patch of lawn in Kyiv's Independence Square has served as a makeshift memorial to the nation's war dead. On it are planted tens of thousands of tiny flags, each put there in honour of a fallen soldier. Amid the sea of blue and yellow are Union Jacks, Stars and Stripes and European tricolours. They honour volunteers who came to fight for Ukraine's International Legion – and who paid the ultimate price.
Not everyone who is remembered there, though, died gloriously in combat. One flag that has fluttered since 2023 commemorates Jordan Chadwick, a volunteer from Burnley in Lancashire. Aged 31, he was a former member of the Scots Guards, a regiment with a fighting history stretching back nearly four centuries. Their motto, Nemo me Impune Lacessit, translates as 'No one assails me with impunity'. Tragically, however, that seems to have been exactly how Chadwick met his end.
On 24 June 2023, Chadwick was found lying dead in a reservoir outside Kramatorsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that lies close to the Donbas front line. In a part of the country that is repeatedly hit by indiscriminate Russian missile fire, such grisly discoveries aren't unknown, but Chadwick's death was no random act from afar. His hands were tied behind his back, and his body had been in the water for no more than a day or two. Someone, it seemed, had taken him prisoner before killing him and trying to hide his corpse – unaware, perhaps, that the reservoir was still fished by local anglers, who found his body in a reed bed close to the shore.
Who, though, would do such a thing, and why? Had he been captured by Russian troops, not best known for their respect for the Geneva Conventions? Or, as many now believe, was he killed not by enemy forces at all, but by fellow Legionnaires?
Last month marked the second anniversary of Chadwick's death, since when a lot has changed in Ukraine. The much-vaunted counter-offensive that he was taking part in that summer, which the West hoped might halt Putin's invasion for good, petered out with little success. Today, it is Russian forces that are gaining ground around the Donbas, moving ever closer to Kramatorsk. Yet the circumstances of his death remain as murky as the water he was found in. 'Everyone has a different theory,' one volunteer told me. 'But those who really know don't want to talk about it.'
That much I have also learnt, having spent the last three years reporting from Ukraine for The Telegraph, and also writing a book about the Legion's role in the war. During that time I have interviewed scores of Legionnaires about their experiences – some on front lines, some in bases, bars and hospital wards. Many of their stories sound like an Andy McNab novel on steroids, with battles that make Afghanistan and Iraq seem like child's play. Amid the tales of heroism, however, there is a darker, less-talked-about side to life in the Legion, which has proved to be a magnet for hotheads and ne'er-do-wells. As some volunteers only half-joke, the people they watch out for most in Ukraine are not the Russians, but fellow Legionnaires.
Few are willing to talk openly about Chadwick's death, even though these are not men who take fright easily. Storming a Russian trench position is one thing. Speaking out about former comrades quite another, bringing a risk of reprisals – or, if nothing else, a break from an unofficial volunteers' code that 'what happens in Ukraine, stays in Ukraine'.
It is a far cry from the lofty tones evoked by President Zelensky when he announced the Legion's creation on the third day of the invasion, a time when Russian victory seemed all but inevitable. Describing it as 'the beginning of a war against Europe, against democracy, against basic human rights', he invited anyone with military experience to join the fight. Within weeks, Kyiv officials claimed, more than 20,000 people had applied. Many saw themselves following in the footsteps of George Orwell, who fought as a Republican volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. But a significant minority were fantasists, misfits and ex-criminals, often fleeing troubled pasts.
The bad apples sullied the Legionnaires' reputation in the eyes of Ukrainian commanders, who either shunned them, or used them as cannon fodder. That led to many volunteers forming their own independent fighting units –which, while technically part of the Legion, were effectively self-run militias, with little by way of formal command or discipline structures. Some also prided themselves in taking on extremely dangerous missions, at which even their Ukrainian counterparts might baulk.
The 50/50 Assault Group, the unit that Chadwick joined, was a case in point. Composed of a couple of dozen mainly British and American fighters, it specialised in hardcore combat – its name a reference to the risks its members ran of death or injury. In 2023 the unit was serving in the Donbas city of Bakhmut, the fiercest battle of the entire war.
When reports of Chadwick's death first emerged that summer, many Legionnaires assumed he had been taken prisoner by Russian troops. Those more familiar with the Donbas's geography, however, could rule that out. The reservoir where his body was found – a vast stretch of water nicknamed the Kramatorsk Sea – was 30 miles west of the nearest front lines, and had never been part of the combat zone.
That left the possibility of a run-in with his fellow volunteers. Legionnaires are no strangers to fights sparked by battlefield mishaps, drunken arguments or personality clashes. Steroid abuse is also common in volunteer circles – one known side-effect of which are bouts of aggression known as 'roid rage'. Might a punch-up between the bruisers of 50/50 have got out of hand?
Numerous Legionnaire contacts knew of ex 50/50 members who had served alongside Chadwick, but every time I asked if they would speak with me, the same answer came back: 'They don't want to talk'. It was not until four months after Chadwick's death that I first tracked one down, and even then he knew only half the story.
'Chadwick was a good soldier, but he was also quite conflictual and argumentative,' he told me. 'All I know is that there was some kind of row, which ended up with him being killed.
'The Legion then sorted it out without any proper investigation. That's the usual way here, they find it easier. The guys involved were just asked to go home, although you'd think the British embassy here in Kyiv [which helped oversee the repatriation of Chadwick's body] must have wondered what the hell was going on. A British guy gets killed, and everyone just says: 'so be it'?'
The story got little coverage in Britain, by then focused on the horrors of the October 7 massacre in Israel. But in Legionnaire chat groups on Whatsapp and Signal, gossip was rife. One story had it that Chadwick had died during an SAS-style 'selection' ritual, involving waterboarding. His body had then been dumped in the reservoir, to make it look like he'd drowned. Another story was that the waterboarding had been done not as part of a ritual, but as a punishment for stealing. Both stories named the culprit as a British volunteer call-signed 'Huggs', who had previously served in the French Foreign Legion.
For nearly a year, Ukrainian police declined to comment, saying only that it was a 'criminal case'. Then, during a visit to Kramatorsk in February last year, I finally spoke to a detective active in the investigation. I met Inna Lyakhova in a heavily guarded police station downtown, where her room contained a mannikin for reconstructions of homicide scenes. She said that she believed Chadwick's death was misadventure rather than murder.
'It seems there was an argument one night between him and some other soldiers at the house they were staying at,' she told me. 'He became emotional and aggressive, so he was put into plastic cuffs. His comrades told him: 'Go away, and don't come back.''
Chadwick then left the house, which Lyakhova said was in a village next to the Kramatorsk reservoir. He then appeared to have strayed into the reservoir itself, where his body was found between 24 and 48 hours later. Whether he had stumbled in accidentally or walked in deliberately was unknown. Either way, he would have been unable to swim with his hands tied behind his back, and the cause of death was drowning. Foul play had been ruled out, as police found no signs of injuries on Chadwick's body that indicated a struggle.
'We think he had gone to the water by himself, as it would have been hard to make him go there against his will,' Lyakhova said. All his 50/50 comrades had been questioned, she added.
When I checked again with the Kramatorsk police just last month, there were no updates. Yet the police account raises as many questions as it answered. Most combat units, after all, are well-drilled in how to take prisoners. Would they really allow a distressed, drunken soldier to wander off into the night alone, hands tied behind his back? If he was being a nuisance, could they not have simply cuffed him to a post or a tree outside, or cuffed his ankles too? Likewise, was the absence of injuries on his body really proof that he had wandered into the lake of his own accord? What if he had been frog-marched there at gunpoint?
Many volunteers I spoke to suspected a cover-up, or that at the very least Ukrainian authorities had little incentive to get to the bottom of it. The battle for Bakhmut that the 50/50 were helping with was crucial to Ukraine's war. Detaining some of them over a petty dispute that had got out of hand would remove valuable assets from the front line. 'You hear of this happening occasionally – some troops have a punch-up, someone gets killed accidentally, and it's just quietly forgotten about,' said one Legionnaire.
So who really was Jordan Chadwick, and what brought him to Ukraine in the first place? Details of his life remain almost as sketchy as his death. The only public comment his family have made was a brief statement after the discovery of his body, praising his 'unwavering courage and resilience'.
He is understood to have served in the Scots Guards from 2011-2015, doing guard duty outside Buckingham Palace. But like many ex-soldiers, his life appears to have unravelled after leaving the Army. In Burnley, residents of the quiet suburban street where his family home used to be spoke of a troubled young man but declined to elaborate. 'I don't want to speak ill of the dead,' one told me.
By the time the Ukraine war beckoned, Chadwick was living rough, camping out in woods in Burnley's suburbs and eating in soup kitchens. One person who got to know him during that time was Pastor Mick Fleming, a reformed drug dealer who runs a local homeless charity, Church On The Street. It was visited by Prince William in January 2022, a month before the Ukraine war broke out.
At the time, Chadwick was a regular drop-in at the charity – Fleming remembers him being excited about the prospect of going to fight.
'He was a lovely guy, very easy to talk to, but also a loner, quite isolated from other people,' Fleming told me back in February. 'The minute the conflict in Ukraine broke out, bingo! – he wanted to be part of it. He said it felt like his duty, as an ex-soldier, to go.'
Straight away, that struck Fleming as a bad idea. Chadwick, he says, was seriously underweight from months of living rough. He smelt heavily of marijuana, and seemed to be delusional. 'I don't think anyone in their right mind would have taken him on as a soldier. He wasn't in a fit state.'
Fleming's advice not to go to Ukraine went unheeded. Chadwick, he said, devoted the next few months attempting to get fit for combat, trying to use his soldier's skills to live off the land. Then, in October 2022, he headed for Ukraine.
Chadwick wasn't alone in seeing the Legion as a chance to turn his life around. Other volunteers I have met went there after stints in jail, messy divorces, or simply because they were bored with life. Fleming heard nothing from Chadwick again, until the reports of his death nearly a year later.
'At first I figured he'd probably been captured by the Russians and executed, but it now looks like he fell out with someone from his own side. From my limited knowledge of him, that seems the most realistic explanation. He was a nice lad, but he couldn't cope with everyday society, with rules. That might have caused him to upset the wrong people.'
Who, though, and why? It wasn't till last month that a clearer picture finally emerged, courtesy of another source, 'Dave', who only agreed to speak after months of persuasion. His accounts of dates, times and people is detailed, and corresponds with other events that I have been able to verify. In the Legionnaires' world, that is about as good as it gets. According to Dave, the incident that led to Chadwick's death was a fight he had one night with another team member, call-signed 'Bronco'.
'50/50 shared two houses close to each other, with Bronco in house one and Chadwick in house two,' Dave recalled. 'Chadwick came over one night, all dressed for battle, and was trying to kill Bronco. The spark for the fight wasn't clear, but they subdued him and then tied his hands behind his back. It's not clear whether he was dead or alive when he left the house, but Huggs drove him away. His body was found in the reservoir a day or two after.'
An American, a Dane, and three Britons, including 'Huggs', were apparently in the house when the fight happened. After Chadwick's body was found, they were all detained and questioned by Ukrainian police, but then released, except for Huggs. Then, in a bizarre twist, they went out for dinner together at a pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, only for it to be hit by a Russian missile.
This part of the story crosses over with mine – I was sitting in the very same restaurant myself that night. By some miracle, just as I was browsing the menu, I got a phone call from a contact who wanted to meet urgently on the other side of town. I left the restaurant, and less than half an hour later heard the explosion. It was caused by an Iskander ballistic missile – a 24ft monster big enough to carry a nuclear warhead – which killed 13 diners, including the Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina, and wounded 60. Among the other casualties were the American 50/50 volunteer, who died, and the Dane, who was seriously injured. The two Britons escaped serious injury, but left Ukraine shortly afterwards.
In the wake of Chadwick's death and the pizza restaurant bombing, the 50/50 effectively ceased operation for some time. Huggs was released from questioning, and continued to fight in Ukraine with a different unit. For legal reasons, I am withholding publication of his name, but recently I tracked him down through an Instagram account.
In a series of message exchanges, he confirmed that he had been 'the primary person under investigation' for a time as he was 50/50's team leader. He and the rest of the unit were then cleared, he said, after DNA and polygraph tests.
Asked what had happened to Chadwick, he wrote the following: 'He [Chadwick] developed a hatred for a team member code-name 'Bronco'. After a few drinks he made ready his weapon and headed to the other team house to confront Bronco. To which he was disarmed, removed from the team house and [the] team itself. It was after that time he was discovered dead.'
He said he was 'not the last person to see Chadwick alive', but declined to elaborate on how Chadwick had died, or who was responsible, adding: 'I cannot confirm what else happened as part of the investigation.'
Once again, it is an explanation that raises as many questions as it answers. If, as Huggs claims, Chadwick was brandishing a weapon threateningly, it might have been legitimate to use force in self-defence. But if so, why dump his body in a reservoir several miles away? And why do Huggs' and Dave's accounts vary so much from that given by the police? Detective Lyakhova made no mention of Chadwick brandishing a weapon. She also said the house where the fight took place was right next to the reservoir, while Dave insists it was in Kramatorsk itself.
In a subsequent message a few weeks after our first exchange, Huggs claimed the police investigation had moved on to focus on members of a previous unit Chadwick had served with, which he had left after an argument. Again, he did not elaborate, but said the argument had taken place after 'an op went bad outside of Bakhmut'.
An inquest into Chadwick's death was due to be held in Britain 18 months ago, but was then postponed, with no new date set. A coroner, however, has no power to compel witnesses to give evidence from overseas. In which case they may have to rely largely on what Ukrainian police tell them. No Scotland Yard team has gone to Ukraine to investigate, and British diplomats may require special security clearance even to travel outside of Kyiv. 'The investigation into Jordan Chadwick's death is being led by the Ukrainian authorities,' Lancashire Police told me.
Meanwhile, the war rumbles on, with Russian troops now barely 10 miles from Kramatorsk. A time may come when both the city and its police station fall into Kremlin hands, at which point the plight of a troubled young Englishman who died there two years ago will surely be forgotten. Somebody, somewhere, knows exactly how Chadwick ended up in that reservoir. But right now, the truth about what happened to him in Ukraine may well stay in Ukraine.
The Mad and the Brave: The Untold Story of Ukraine's Foreign Legion, by Colin Freeman (HarperCollins, £22), is published on July 17