Ex-British Army sniper in Ukraine says Taliban ‘would do better job’ than Russia

A former British Army sniper volunteering in Ukraine reckons that the Taliban would "do a better job" occupying the country than the Russians.

Shane Matthew, 34, is currently in Ukraine in a training capacity having served two tours of Afghanistan.

He made the claim this week after witnessing 12 of Vladimir Putin's soldiers 'panic' after a firefight broke out when they entered the city of Irpin, near to Kyiv.

He told The Times that most of the Russian troops were killed while the others all fled.

He said: "There was a lot of gunfire going on and the Russians were panicking.

"The Taliban would do a better job, there’s no way they [Russia] could encircle Kyiv."

Matthew is just one of roughly 20,000 foreign volunteers to have made their way to Ukraine since the start of Putin's "special military operation".

In his training role he is not part of the foreign legion engaging in battles with the Russians, hence he did not fight in Irpin this week.

Instead, Matthew is training Ukrainian civilians who have signed up to the territorial defence forces. He is also teaching them first aid and trauma response treatment.

He insists that the Ukrainians he is training are a stronger force than their Russian counterparts, despite none of the 50 in one of his training programmes ever having been shot at.

Russia's 'complete incompetence' means that Matthew reckons he is '100% on the winning side'. He described Putin's men as 'tactically inferior'.

He added: "We’ve managed to take massive amounts of ground from the Russians."

Although Matthew isn't in Ukraine to engage in direct combat with Russian forces he has been involved in some sticky situations.

Immediately after witnessing their incompetence in Irpin, Russians opened up with machine guns on his car as he was travelling back to base.

He explained how his convoy accelerated away for their lives and managed to escape.

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