Anthony Walker was on a train somewhere near Pribeta, Slovakia. The 29-year-old Canadian was exhausted and alone, having only managed to grab about 30 minutes of sleep over the previous 36 hours. It was 8:15 p.m. local time on Sunday and as the skyline rushed past his window, all was dark. He knew where he was headed, though: Rzeszów, a Polish city located approximately 100 kilometers from the border with Ukraine and an additional 70 kilometers from Lviv, Ukraine. From there, he hoped to link up with other foreign-born combatants who’ve been responding to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for help defending his country.
Until then, Walker was best known for a handful of satirical short videos he’d made poking fun at the right. In his wildest imagination, the comedian never thought he’d take up arms, let alone all the way on the other side of the globe, while his wife and three boys, ages 2, 5, and 7, remain safe at home in a suburb an hour from Toronto.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, Walker told The Daily Beast on a WhatsApp call, as the signal dropped in and out while the train rolled from town to Eastern European town. On Thursday night, he made up his mind to join the fray and right what he saw as an unconscionable wrong. The following morning, he tweeted about it, and soon enough offers of support and assistance poured in from all corners. Some have even asked how they might join him.
He’s been posting near-constant updates at every step of his journey, some of which went viral enough that the actor Mark Hamill gave him a shout-out. A bit of money—about $4,000 which went toward medical supplies and protective gear, including Level IV body armor—was raised. And his plane ticket was purchased for him by a Ukrainian professional athlete, who promised to meet him in Budapest and accompany him across the border.
That plan, like many others, ended up being derailed. By Walker’s account he didn’t have much of a concrete plan of any kind in place before he decided to go. He simply charged ahead and so far, fate has taken the wheel.
But no amount of careful plotting would have altered the hard and fast realities of his choice: Walker is running headfirst into danger. He has no illusions about the risk he faces. While he was riding the rails on Sunday night, airstrikes were being carried out in Kyiv.
Though Walker, who trained to be a paramedic in Canada, will be offering his services as a combat medic, he’ll be carrying weapons and expected to use them. This despite having no formal weapons training of any kind. That part of his story will be documented and shared online, too. The hacker collective Anonymous has also promised to aid in his efforts, he said.
More than anything, Walker felt he had no choice. Putin won’t stop at Ukraine, he feels, and if the world doesn’t take a stand, who knows what further horrors will be unleashed. Luckily, he has the financial wherewithal and the support from his family. They mean everything to him, and he can’t imagine what it would mean were he to suffer harm. In the end, Walker believes the stakes are too high.
“Having a wife and kids isn’t a reason not to go,” said Walker. “It’s a reason to go. Because I’m doing this as much for them as I’m doing it for Ukraine and everyone there.”
It’s taken more than a few odd turns for Walker to arrive at this point in his life. After graduating high school, Walker worked in construction and carpentry for a few years. In 2018, he tried to enlist in the Canadian military, but he suffers from a low blood platelet count, which barred him from serving. Instead, Walker ended up training to be an emergency medical responder. When he signed up for volunteer work, he noticed that there were instances in which paramedics encountered dangerous situations. He bought a Kevlar vest, which ultimately ended up being used in an altogether different profession.
In June 2020, a Georgia law-enforcement officer recorded a video of herself wiping back tears because, she claimed, she’d been refused service at a McDonald’s. When it went viral, Walker decided to create a retort. He wrote a quick script, strapped on the Kevlar vest, and addressed the camera. His video got a lot of attention on Twitter, and he continued to crank out bits—videos that mostly consist of mocking Trump supporters, Donald Trump Jr., the Proud Boys, and so on.
Comedy hasn’t paid all of Walker’s bills so far. Just enough to supplement the income brought in by his wife Rebecca, a health-care worker who assists seniors in a long-term facility. His most popular creation, a November 2020 video titled the “Million MAGA March,” racked up about a million views, according to Walker.
As his social-media follower count was climbing, he also joined Cameo, a platform that allows users to purchase bespoke video messages from celebrities. Out of the blue, he received a request from John Jackson, a cybersecurity researcher and co-founder of Sakura Samurai, a “white hat” hacking collective. Jackson then connected Walker with individuals who run the Anonymous Twitter account, which began regularly promoting his videos. (Walker’s a fan of their work, too.) That bit of networking will come in handy now. According to Walker, Anonymous will be helping to ensure whatever footage he shoots in Ukraine can be uploaded and shared.
Walker had been regularly tracking the news about Ukraine since the agitation by the Kremlin started. Over the last few weeks, he’s posted frequent updates about the conflict, sharing images of Ukrainian soldiers, angry missives posted by westerners, and more, while also tweaking the U.S. political right about their hesitancy to back Ukraine. (Similarly, Walker ridiculed the anti-vax trucker protests and extended blockade in his native Canada.)
There had been a general plea for assistance last week from the Ukrainian government, but on Sunday morning it formally announced the creation of the International Legion of the Territorial Defense of Ukraine.
“This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules and peaceful coexistence,” Zelensky’s statement said. “Anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals.”
Walker found inspiration in Zelensky’s messages throughout the past week, if only because they confirmed much of what he already believed. But the final straw for Walker was a video he saw on Thursday morning. In it, a Ukrainian citizen going off to fight is seen embracing his own children, possibly for the last time. “If this was us in Canada, we would want someone to come help us," he told The Daily Beast. “We have the luxury of knowing that would never happen here.” However appalled he was by the actions of the Russian government, Walker doesn’t deny that part of his motivation is self-preservation. “My family will not survive World War III,” he said.
He and his wife talked Thursday night, and while her concerns were far from mollified, she understood his reasoning, Rebecca told The Daily Beast on the phone. Perhaps her husband can inspire others and hopefully do some good. “One person leads to one more person, which leads to one more person,” was how Walker put it to her. “That made sense to me.” She’ll have to pick up additional shifts at work, and grandparents will pitch in by getting their children to school and day care. Some who’ve followed Walker’s Twitter posts have reached out to offer help.
“It’s just amazing how many people can come together,” she said. Explaining their father’s decision to her kids has been difficult, to say the least. Her 7-year-old son seemed to grasp what’s happening, but the two younger boys couldn't. Her own fears can’t be entirely placated, either. “The unknown is what’s the worst,” said Rebecca.
As Walker’s voyage to fight for Ukraine drew more attention, he found himself unwittingly becoming a source for others looking to follow in his footsteps. It’s not a role he ever sought and, by his own admission, one he doesn’t know a great deal about beyond the info he’s been able to crowdsource online. That hasn’t stopped about four to five dozen people from contacting him so far. Fifteen have indicated they are going through with it.
One of those Walker spoke with is Gregg Browder, 55. The Fairbanks, Alaska, resident and retired teacher has communicated with Walker on Twitter for a few years now. As the hostilities escalated, Browder realized he wanted to do his part.
“They’ll take any swinging dick that can squeeze a trigger,” he told The Daily Beast when reached by phone. He served with the 82nd Airborne for two years, including a stint abroad in Egypt in the mid-’80s. It’s been a while since he handled a weapon, and both his age and physical condition might limit his participation. Still, he’s game.
“If I can go help, fuck yeah. Gimme a ticket,” said Browder, who described himself as a leftist. “It’s about freedom, man.”
Whether he’ll end up doing so remains a 50-50 proposition. He has family and life commitments that can’t be ignored. But if he goes ahead, “This is going to fuck my wife over, big time,” Browder said.
According to a report by the Soufan Center, 17,000 unaffiliated fighters have trekked to Ukraine between 2014 and 2019, bolstering the ranks of both the Russian and Ukrainian forces. When conflict broke out in both Syria and Iraq, “war junkies” made their way to the front lines as well. As Vice reported, the influx of mercenary types in Ukraine has picked up in recent months.
But how someone without any prior experience—like Walker—might go about enlisting wasn't exactly clear.
Initially, Walker contacted Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross, offering his services. The application would take time to process, he was told Friday morning, and Walker wouldn’t have the ability to decide where in Ukraine he might be sent, even if he were willing to wait up to two months.
A call was then placed to the Ukrainian embassy in Ottawa. The embassy instructed Walker to fly into Warsaw and figure out a means of getting to the border from there. In short order, a new point of entry emerged. The recently retired Ukrainian tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky saw Walker’s viral Twitter thread and contacted him, offering to pay for his flight to Budapest, Hungary. Stakhovsky promised him that if he could get there by Sunday, they’d cross the border together. Walker accepted the generous gift. (The Daily Beast was not able to reach Stakhovsky for comment. On Saturday, he told Sky News he’d joined the military reserves. Walker also shared screenshots of the messages they’d exchanged about covering his airfare.)
But while Walker was still in the air on his way to Amsterdam, the former tennis pro informed him that he’d already left Hungary and was in Ukraine. At that moment, Walker recalled thinking, “Oh shit. When I get to Budapest, I’m so fucked.”
For a while, he was. Lacking any other options, Walker went ahead with the connecting flight to Budapest. He grabbed a cab to the Canadian embassy, but had forgotten to check beforehand if they were open on Sundays. They were not. Neither was the Ukrainian embassy. But he was able to find a hotel near the Canadian embassy, and a friendly concierge allowed him to hold up in the lobby for as long as Walker needed while he plotted his next move.
Together, he and the 18- or 19-year-old concierge tried to hunt around online for a train going into Ukraine. Nothing seemed to be available until Tuesday. They did locate a Hertz outlet in Rzeszów, Poland, a city close enough that he could return to his original strategy for entry into Ukraine. So back in a taxi he went, heading to another Hertz in Budapest to pick up the rental car.
While in transit, a friend with family members living in Budapest said they’d located a train departing later in the day. The taxi driver, who Walker called “amazing,” pulled over by the side of the road, helped him navigate the station website, and then accompanied him to the kiosk, translating and making sure he’d bought the correct ticket.
Once he gets to Poland, Walker still doesn’t know precisely what he’ll do next. His train arrived at 8 a.m. ET on Feb. 28, but he hadn’t booked a hotel room ahead of time. He’d heard the celebrity chef and philanthropist José Andrés was setting up shop in Medyka, a city 100 kilometers from Rzeszów and situated right on the Ukrainian border, offering free meals and temporary shelter to refugees. Ideally, he’ll find someone who speaks English at the train station who can point him in the right direction. (Walker can’t speak Polish, Ukrainian, or Russian. His father was on Twitter soliciting help Monday morning.) It may take another two or three days, but from Medyka, he’ll make his way to Lviv, where ex-military members and combat veterans are already in place, he thinks. If all goes well, he’ll travel with them to Kyiv.
Walker has heard the criticisms. Many online have praised him to the hilt, but some have called him reckless or questioned whether he has full control of his mental faculties. Others have been skeptical, wondering if he’s trying to pull off some kind of Jake Paul-type stunt to raise his profile. He is a comedian, after all, and in January, one American ex-soldier-cum-military lifestyle influencer did show up in Ukraine to produce content.
So when he does hear from people who doubt his motives, Walker gets it. He’s been bombarded with direct messages on Twitter, making it impossible to respond to everyone. Even so, Walker’s replies have always been the same:
“No, this isn’t a joke,” he said. “And if it was one, it wouldn’t be fucking funny.”
