Ex-cop Craig, 53, told how he and Ewen – both volunteers in Ukraine for UK medical charity ReactAid – leapt into action after Shareef made an appeal to get home
Two Scots medics staged a daring raid deep into Ukraine to rescue a stricken UK fighter nicknamed “Rambo”. Craig Borthwick and Ewen Cameron rescued Bristol-born Shareef Amin, 40, after he suffered severe injuries in a Russian bomb attack in Odesa.
Speaking to the Record about the daring mission, Craig, from Lanarkshire, said: “This wasn’t our first rodeo as we’ve been involved in Ukraine since the start of the invasion. But this time, everything that could go wrong did. The mission included an overland journey to Odesa, a city being regularly bombed, the risk of being arrested by the Russians, all the while managing a severely injured casualty.
Craig said: “It was going to take 14 hours to drive from Krakow to Odesa, through areas that have been heavily bombed and were a missile risk. Luckily, a group of Ukrainian citizens in a convoy of 4x4 vehicles who were heading to the border stopped at the filling station and spent hours trying to get the ambulance going. But the pair were eventually forced to abandon it in a bid to get to Shareef.“We had to carry 100kg of kit on foot between the two of us. Stations are a target for the Russians and we didn’t know until the next morning that as we were travelling through Vinnytsia, it was being bombed.
“When we got to Lviv, the paperwork still wasn’t through,” Craig said. “We knew if we crossed the border without it, we could have been arrested or sent back to Ukraine but our hands were tied and we had to make a move that night.” “How Shareef survived the explosion and the trip back, I don’t know. He’s a very special character and I’ve been speaking to him most days since we got home. Ewen and I are now waiting to evacuate other casualties but ReactAid desperately needs more funding.“Ukraine is suffering so much but the people have incredible resilience. For now, I can’t see an end in sight to the war and I don’t know how it’s going to finish.
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