Chris ‘Swampy' Garrett obituary: bomb disposal expert killed in Ukraine
In March a Russian court convicted Chris 'Swampy' Garrett of terrorism charges in absentia. It sentenced him to 14 years in jail. Garrett was a largely self-taught bomb disposal expert from the Isle of Man who had been working in Ukraine for almost a decade. He called the conviction 'a pathetic attempt to smear me by those who have murdered, raped and tortured thousands of civilians in Ukraine'. His job was 'about preserving life, not taking it'.
But the conviction was a back-handed compliment: it showed that his very considerable contribution to Ukraine's war effort had riled President Putin's regime in Moscow. At great personal risk, Garrett had defused thousands of tonnes of landmines planted by Russian troops, as well as countless booby traps and
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
26 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE A bright yellow minibus, a force 9 gale in the Baltic and a gang of heavies with Kalashnikovs: how MI6 extracted a KGB colonel and double agent from under the Russians' noses - with his wife, son and senile mother-in-law in tow
Even with decades of experience between them, the two middle-aged spies were on edge. They were about to attempt something that had never been done before in the history of MI6. Instead of smuggling out one Russian spy to a new life in Britain – the more usual scenario – they were going to extract an entire family.
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Five years from now, these readers will be soldiers': The Russian literature encouraging teens to enlist
'Z literature', a subgenre of Russian fantasy fiction characterised by nationalistic, pro-war storylines, has been on the rise since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began three years ago and may be pushing young readers towards enlisting in combat. Z literature – named after the 'Z' symbol of support for the invasion – often features popadantsy, or 'accidental travel' narratives, involving a protagonist being transported to pivotal moments in Russia's past and using modern knowledge to intervene and alter history in Russia's favour. 'Providing a powerful strain of jingoistic nostalgia, these narratives satisfy readers' yearning for the lost superpower status by rewriting the past,' according to Mediazona, the independent Russian news outlet which reported on the boom in Z literature in May. Z literature is targeted at young men who will soon be the focus of enlistment drives, said Colin Alexander, a senior lecturer in political communications at Nottingham Trent University. 'In times of war, all countries will try to inspire those demographics targeted [for] soldiering through a range of propaganda strategies.' While news broadcasts are often focused on by propaganda researchers, 'the reality is that publics are most inspired to serve the war effort through storytelling entertainment media and that excites and inspires. Russia is certainly using these well-trodden wartime emotional propaganda techniques, but it is important to state that wherever there is war we tend to find them.' These 'Russian hyper-nationalistic genre novels with their outsize heroics are significant because they are made outside the formal propaganda apparatus of the state,' said Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, emeritus professor of communications at Queen Mary, University of London. 'They are pieces of individual entrepreneurship but highly predictable, as if from a common template.' While the books 'connect of course with Hollywood hyper heroics' such as Captain America, and the 'literature imbibed by Victorian British schoolboys' such as the novels of GA Henry, 'the difference lies in their crudeness and the extent of their hypernationalism which takes them into the realms of fantasy. They retain not one shred of credibility.' 'They offer a binary world of hateful foreigners and wonderful Russians – or at least, Russians who become great after learning the lessons of experience,' he said. Books falling in the Z literature subgenre, according to Mediazona, include Crimean Cauldron by Nikolai Marchuk, in which Ukrainians are portrayed as Nazis and the whole world has turned against Russia, and White Z on the Front Armour by Mikhail Mikheev, about a Russian agent who enters Ukraine after the full-scale invasion begins and apprehends a western spy. 'The market is clearly young and male, but what is stunning is the coarseness. It would be funny if it were not really real. [The books] are tapping into a terrible appetite for destruction, deep yearnings for revenge and a strange view of the Russians as a kind of herrenvolk, a unique people. One source of this mythology is the belief that second world war victory was almost entirely of Russian authorship,' said O'Shaughnessy. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion 'So these are master-race fantasies which to work require the diminution of other peoples, their subjugation – and arousing hatred is the lubricant for this.' Another example of Z literature, reported Mediazona, is PMC Chersonesus by Andrei Belyanin, a popadantsy story which sees a former marine on a mission to return artefacts to Crimea with a team resembling Aphrodite, Heracles and Dionysus. Along the way, they encounter other figures from Greek mythology and zombie Nazis. Their final mission involves stealing Scythian gold from the Netherlands – a plotline nodding to the real-life loaning of gold to an Amsterdam museum pre-annexation, which the Dutch supreme court ultimately decided should go to Ukraine, not Crimea. 'Five years from now, these readers will be soldiers,' Jaroslava Barbieri, a researcher at the University of Birmingham, told The Telegraph. 'The Kremlin isn't trying to appease aggression – it's cultivating it.' All healthy men aged between 18 and 30 must complete one year of service in the Russian military. Though conscripts in theory cannot serve on the frontlines, there have been reports of them signing combat contracts under duress.
Reuters
41 minutes ago
- Reuters
Ukraine-Russia, Colorado, Poland and tax bill
Follow on Apple or Spotify. Listen on the Reuters app. Russian and Ukrainian officials are due to meet in Istanbul for a second round of direct peace talks, a day after Ukraine launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war. Eight people have been injured after a man yelled "Free Palestine" and threw incendiary devices into a crowd in Boulder, Colorado. Nationalist opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki has narrowly won Poland's presidential election, delivering a major blow to the centrist government. The Senate returns today with one of its first priorities to tackle U.S. President Donald Trump's tax and spending bill. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit to opt out of targeted advertising. Further Reading Steelmakers in South Korea, Vietnam tumble on Trump's new tariffs Gaza ministry says Israel kills more than 30 aid seekers, Israel denies DHS removes list of 'sanctuary' cities after sheriffs push back on non-compliant label Tulsa mayor announces $105 million trust to address impact of 1921 massacre Recommended Read: Trump cuts threaten safety training for America's most dangerous jobs Further Listening: Gen Z gender divide and the reshaping of democracy
