British volunteer Macer Gifford, who fought with Ukrainian troops, says the brutality of Russian soldiers is so severe that his unit made a horrific vow: never to be taken alive.
Gifford, whose real name is Harry Rowe and who previously worked for the City of London, told Business Insider that the methods of the Russian military are so brutal, they compare to those used by ISIS in the Syrian civil war. Having fought both in Syria and Ukraine, Gifford warned Western viewers not to underestimate the stakes of the war or view it as a “conflict on the edge of Europe.”
“It’s an extermination war,” Gifford said.
Working on strategic Ukrainian battlefields like Kherson and Lyman, Gifford described how his foreign volunteer legion faced such horrific threats of torture and death that they swore an oath that no one would ever surrender.
That decision wasn’t symbolic—Gifford recalled one fighter being expelled from the unit for attempting to surrender mid-firefight.
His fears are not unfounded. While a UN investigation mentioned isolated cases of abuse by Ukrainian captors—most frequently during or shortly after capture—Russia’s treatment of prisoners, the same report suggests, is far more institutionalized. The UN found “widespread and systemic” torture in Russian internment camps, including beatings, electrocution, rape, mock executions, and others.
The war crimes extend beyond imprisonment. Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Matsievsky was a national hero following video testimony verifying him as being shot by Russian soldiers—following reportedly being forced to dig his own grave.
Gifford made direct correlations between Russian tactics used in Ukraine and those used by ISIS and the Assad regime in Syria, where Russia has been supporting President Bashar al-Assad since 2015.
“I thought the Islamic State was a one-off,” Gifford said. “But some of their brutal methods have been replicated by Russia—most likely because they worked so well.”
He described discovering cages, torture devices, and chained mattresses for female prisoners in ISIS-occupied areas of Syria, then finding the same signs of brutality in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
Regardless of Russia’s enormous size militarily—it will expand its army to 1.5 million active duty troops—Gifford reported its military had cataclysmic losses in Ukraine. Gifford depicted Russia’s war strategy as one of sheer numbers, with troops in waves sent into battle with little regard for casualties.
“The real difference,” he said, “is the way the two nations value life. Ukrainians are fighting to survive. Russia is fighting to own territory.”
Gifford’s warning to the world is blunt: don’t look the other way on this war.
He warned that the Western powers like to view the war as a global crisis of regional importance, but for Russian President Vladimir Putin, it’s far more existential.
“To Putin, this is the war to end all wars,” Gifford said. “He believes it’s a war of utter destruction.”
Even as Russia has denied every accusation of war crimes, international observers and human rights groups keep reporting on large-scale abuses.
As the war continues, such voices as Gifford’s remind us of the moral and strategic necessity of international support for Ukraine—not just to survive, but to protect human rights and international order.
