That’s how the wars no one is supposed to be officially involved in usually go. Suspiciously well armed and trained “Volunteers”. Mercs getting involved with no one being 100% sure who is actually paying them. Etc.

Probably contractors. Meaning they go out of their own free will.

This will not end well if NATO keeps poking the bear, they just will not learn.

First it was an Ukranian Army with NATO weapons and instructors. Now it is a NATO army with Ukranian soldiers.

Into the meat grinder of Russian artillery. Superior to the setup NATO has,

One of the comments was the ratio of artillery shells - one Ukronazi complained that for every 2 shells they send over, they get 9 Russian ones, and the bombardment is constant.

The Telegram account of IntelSlava does not shy away from displaying the bodies of dead Ukrainian soldiers.

Video of NATO troops greeting Ukrainian villagers in latest counteroffensive

https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/xe7cj4/french_and_american_volunteers_welcomed_by_happy/

Let's see NATO hurriedly trying to airlift out a few surviving officers in a couple of weeks.

Could you imagine if Russia contracted in over 100,000 Chinese and North Korean soldiers to fight in Ukraine?

There's plenty more where those came from.

Any captured Westerners will have the interesting dilemma of (a) being considered as mercenaries, and thus outside the protection of the Geneva accords, or (b) being considered as national co-belligerents, which makes NATO nations part of the war and thus legitimate targets. Nations who play footsie (such as Poland) might be faced with a demand to be neutral, or suffer the fate of being a co-belligerent.

Shit. I now realize where my coworker ended up going 3 months back. That fucking idiot.