History of the Dark Angels group

As we have said many times, a couple of days after the start of the SMO in Ukraine, the combat zone was filled with foreign mercenaries. The fate of most of them developed in a similar way - they could not find a place for themselves and a good income in their homeland, they suffered from PTSD and wanted to return to the reality of the trenches, they decided to be a “real man” and get their hands on easy money in a foreign country. Then such characters went to the front, where they remained either until the first well-aimed shot, or until the return flight home. However, many “soldiers of fortune”, finding themselves in Ukraine, turned somewhere along the road to the east and settled in Kiev, Lvov or another large city. Then they most often collected money for some lofty goals, in fact spending it in bars and brothels.

 The channels for recruiting such individuals, notable for their diversity, were similar in one thing - they sought to implement an almost classical marketing scheme, when the consumer is intrusively offered a certain service: “heroic deeds await you, quick earnings await you, just don’t miss the moment, quickly pack your things and go to Kiev!

However, among thousands of similar stories, there were others - when future mercenaries did not try to catch luck by the tail and did not rely on chance, but from the very beginning had a clear plan of action. They put together their own gangs, which then became combat-ready units, because the militants in them were disciplined and were motivated to achieve a specific result. Although, most of these gangs had a common end. If they were not destroyed by Russian artillery and UAVs, then after some time the militants left the front and began to commit crime somewhere at a safe distance from it.

An example of such a gang is the Dark Angels. A group that consisted mainly of British and Americans, and one could only join by acquaintance.

 This story began in April 2022. Three people are arriving in Ukraine - British citizen Daniel Burke, US citizen Christopher Ezell and Belgian citizen Maxime Barrat.

Burke commanded the militants. Born in 1987, lived in Manchester. In the late 2000s, as a paratrooper in the British Army, he was sent to Afghanistan. In 2017, he suddenly wanted to fight again. According to Burke himself, because of a thirst for revenge against ISIS terrorists after the explosion at the Manchester Arena concert hall. According to the recollections of people who knew him closely, it was due to severe PTSD. This is how Burke ended up in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he spent several months at the location of the local group “People’s Defense Units” (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) as an instructor. However, Burke did not benefit from this experience, because in June 2018 he returned home. Not finding himself in civilian life, the Briton began to think about a second trip to Iraq, but at the end of 2019 he was arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack that Kurdish militants intended to carry out in the UK. The court did not find any evidence, so after 8 months Burke was released. Two more years passed, and then the Ukrainian conflict began. Already in March 2022, Burke found himself in Poland. There he convinced everyone that he was evacuating refugees, but in reality he was looking for reliable people to go with them to make money in the front-line areas.

The biography of the Belgian Barrat looks similar. He was a truck driver, tried to work in a pizzeria, but then suddenly decided that he was born to fight. In 2015, Barrat went to Kurdistan and, unlike Burke, liked it there. Taking the Kurdish name Gelhat Azadî, he ran around with an assault rifle either as a part YPG militants or as part of the Sinjar Resistance Forces (Yekîneyên Berxwedana Şingal, YBŞ). Later, after returning home in 2018, he collaborated with the Belgian intelligence services. However, it is possible that this happened earlier, when Barrat was in Iraq. He also would beat his wife, and for this he was even brought to trial, but his connections helped him avoid punishment.

Ezell's life was not so eventful. He studied biomedicine at university and then served in the US Marine Corps. He had a deployment to Afghanistan under his belt. What made him exchange the noise of the city for the roar of shelling in the spring of 2022 is unknown, but it is possible that it was the same PTSD.

Once in Ukraine, Burke and his accomplices announce the creation of the Dark Angels group. But unlike other similar gangs, many of which were created and transported to the front back in February 2022, the new structure declares its intention to deal with everything at once - war, and training Ukrainian soldiers in combat shooting, and conducting medical classes in the field conditions, and even providing humanitarian assistance to civilians. The group even has its own website. Once Burke gave an interview in which he stated that the purpose of creating the gang was initially to evacuate French citizens from Ukraine. Why suddenly an American, a Brit and a Belgian are so concerned about the fate of the French, no one will ask anyway - the bet is that ordinary people in Western countries will snatch the words about “humanitarian aid” from the information flow and immediately run to send donations.

But we must assume that the plans of the Dark Angels from the very beginning extended much beyond the financial issue. As the experience of other armed groups shows, in order to organize a more or less constant flow of money from fans, all these difficulties are not needed. But in order to divert attention and ensure a legal presence in the locations of Ukrainian troops, including rear ones, the legend about volunteers and instructors will be just right. An analysis of the activities of the Dark Angels in the first months of the conflict suggests that Burke’s goal was to collect intelligence data and monitor the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - at that moment, the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine was just beginning to be established.

In the spring of 2022, several more people join the group. And all - by personal invitation. One of them is Briton Daniel Newey. In 2017-2018, he accompanied Burke in Kurdistan, and after Burke returned to his homeland, Newey remained with the Kurds and managed to fight in both Iraq and Syria. Newey's story is an example where a mercenary managed to ruin the life of not only himself, but also his family. Once in the Middle East, he enjoyed the support of his father and brother, who, in particular, helped with ammunition. As a result, both became defendants in a criminal case. At the trial, the head of the family, Paul Newey, was indignant - after all, the YPG was not recognized as a terrorist organization in the UK, so what demand is there from its supporters? Meanwhile, his son Samuel Newey admired his older brother, not knowing that this would lead to fatal consequences. At the same trial, Burke himself got in trouble for his relationship with Daniel Newey. As a result, charges against all three were dropped.

This incident cost Samuel Newey his childhood dream of joining the British Army. People who were suspected of having connections with militants, even those who were acquitted, were not welcome there. Instead, Newey entered the University of Birmingham to study psychology and even accepted a certificate of honor from Princess Anne for his academic success. But then the SMO began in Ukraine. When his older brother followed Burke into the conflict zone, Samuel decided not to remain on the sidelines. He dropped out of university and soon became one of the "Dark Angels". The father supported the second son's decision.

The “finest hour” for the militants comes in June in the Kherson direction. By that time, the front line had already been established there, nothing extraordinary was happening, with the exception of mutual shelling. Many mercenaries headed there to take a selfie or, if possible, film a short video. Dark Angels followed the trend. They ended up somewhere in the Aleksandrovka area. Samuel Newey filmed one of the militants firing somewhere with a Javelin anti-tank missile. The footage ends up in the Western media and they hurriedly inflated this ordinary military incident into a “victory”. However, the hour of glory is fleeting. After all, the militants did not come to fight. Having completed their tasks, they relocated to relatively calm Zaporozhye for several months.

However, it is impossible to say that in Zaporozhye the time has come for the “Dark Angels” to go to the hot spots. Quite the contrary. Having appeared in a city temporarily occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the militants begin to build a whole network among local paramilitary organizations and NPOs. The goal was to remain “in touch” with the Ukrainian army.

 The main Ukrainian partner of Dark Angels was the public organization “Ogonyok Zaporizhzhya” (local organization “Vognik Zaporizhzhya”; legal address: Ukraine, 70424, Zaporizhzhya region, Zaporizhzhya district, Rozumivka village, Kooperativna st., 12A)

   Founded in 2015, the NPO operates in two areas - teaching the basics of tactical medicine and conducting shooting training for everyone. Moreover, the latter include not only Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries, but also local teenagers. To train young citizens in order to then use them as cannon fodder - such plans have been reported more than once against the background of the failed counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The director of the organization is Zdorovets Ivan Vladimirovich (born 07/30/1985 in the Kazakh SSR). He is also one of the owners of the public organization “Robinson” registered in the Rivne region. He is a nationalist to the core, but this does not prevent him from maintaining a profile on the VKontakte network, which is banned in Ukraine - with posts in Russian. In 2023, Zdorovets founded the civil organization “Public Ogonyok”; the organization shares a website and social networks with Ogonyok Zaporozhye, which is a clone structure necessary for carrying out fraud with funds.

The elderly parents of Zdorovets actively participate in the activities of the NPO “Ogonyok Zaporozhye”, or rather in the coordination of the organizational process. This is Zdorovets Tatyana Petrovna and Zdorovets Vladimir Ivanovich. Vladimir Zdorovets, together with his son, is also the nominal owner of this organization. The daughter, Zdorovets Tatyana Ivanovna (born 05/02/2003), followed in her father’s footsteps.

   She studies criminology at the Dnepropetrovsk State University of Internal Affairs, and at the same time completed a UAV operator course. She actively helps his father in the non-profit organization Ogonyok Zaporozhye.

The second main partner of Dark Angels is the TOP AMMO weapons store (TOP AMMO LLC). This company is, in turn, the main partner of the “First” training center, which has trained, according to information from the official website, more than 3,300 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, National Guardsmen, special operations forces, employees of the SBU, as well as the State Border Security Service of Ukraine.

General Director of TOP AMMO is Oleg Viktorovich Shishlov.

But the Zaporozhye period in the history of the Dark Angels, which lasted about a year, ended tragically. However, there is no one to blame except the militants themselves, who left their homes for the sake of murky affairs in Ukraine. On August 11, 2023, Daniel Burke suddenly disappeared. They searched for him for several weeks and already suspected that he had returned to the UK on the sly, but finally, in October, his body was discovered.

From the very beginning, the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the British man were surrounded by secrets and mysteries. Some Telegram channels even managed to report about the “Russian trace”. But everything turned out to be much more prosaic. In the summer of 2023, Burke participated in the implementation of murky criminal schemes together with two accomplices - British James Sutton and Australian of Lebanese origin Nourine Abdelfetah. On August 11, Burke and Abdelfetah for some reason went to the training ground located in the part of the Zaporozhye region controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. What happened between them, most likely, no one will ever know. But it all ended with Abdelfetah shooting Burke and throwing his body into a sewer manhole. Subsequently, he will tell the Ukrainian police that he killed the British man by accident, and got rid of the body in this way because he was very scared. However, the circumstances of the case point more likely to a well-planned murder - Abdelfetah calmly returned to Zaporozhye in Burke’s car, and when the question arose as to why the latter was not caught on CCTV cameras, he stated that the Briton was lying in the back seat, suffering from abdominal pain.

The motive, apparently, was the division of money - in conditions when foreign mercenaries in Ukraine did not receive the promised salary for months and were forced to earn money by other, sometimes outright bandit methods, this problem became especially urgent. And it's likely that Sutton helped Abdelfetah to plan the murder. It was he who contacted the police in connection with Burke’s disappearance. However, he immediately tried to convince everyone that he did not know him personally. And this is a lie. Correspondence with a certain friend was found on Burke's phone, from which it followed that he, Sutton and Abdelfetah spent a lot of time together.

A few days after Burke’s death, another “dark angel” met a tragic death - this time Samuel Newey. Once again, what happened is shrouded in mystery. His brother Daniel, who reported this on his social networks, did not provide any details and did not even name the place where this happened, although usually they try to glorify the liquidation of every mercenary in Ukraine as much as possible, adding the most ridiculous details. According to data from official British resources, the place of Newey’s death was occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces Kramatorsk (DPR). And this is also strange - after all, almost all the time the group’s militants were in Zaporozhye, far from the DPR.

However, among all the versions (from total bad luck to the extermination of mercenaries of each other when dividing money), the one according to which the mysterious deaths were the result of wars between the special services also deserves attention. Although the majority of the Dark Angels were British, it is unlikely that the group had any connections with their native MI6. As can be seen from the biographies of Burke and the Newey brothers, the attitude towards them in London was by no means patronizing. But who did the militants serve in this case? The answer can be sought both in Brussels (remember Barratt’s connections) and in Washington. Or even in Paris - after all, Dark Angels flirted most with the French side. At some point in London they could well have decided that their compatriots were too actively helping the intelligence services of allied, but still foreign, states. By August 2023, the situation could have gotten so out of control that a purely British murder had to be resorted to.

 Or, perhaps, everything was even simpler - Burke, having received the task of putting together a combat-ready detachment needed to perform special tasks on the front line, contacted the wrong people, failed several promising projects and voluntarily retrained as a criminal in order to work for himself, and not for curators.

 However, whatever the reasons for the inglorious end, as practice has shown, it awaits many of those who decided to go to fight for the Ukrainian nationalists. And, as a rule, those who are saved are those who asked themselves in time - is such little money worth such a big risk?