The Taiwanese Soldier Who Lost His Life to Defend Ukraine

Hi, I'm wanh and this is the big take from Bloomberg. We've got something special for you today. This Saturday, Taiwanese are heading to the Poles to elect a new president, and perhaps no issue weighs more heavily on the mind of voters than the escalating tensions with China. Conflict with its mighty neighbor just across the waters is a constant that Taiwanese have lived with for decades. China sees Taiwan

On a Saturday afternoon last June, Jonathan's Sam prepares to board a flight at Taiwan Tahyan International Airport. This will be the start of his journey to the war in Ukraine. Jonathan is snacking on some Taiwanese popcorn chicken in the foot court of Terminu one. He's twenty four years old, five feet eight, in a navy blue shirt and a fresh flat top, baby faced but well built. His wife, who asked that we call her Gina, sits quietly by him, ice bread and puffy. Jonathan, mom Ma, I'm taking the

Tries to laugh it off. I'll be back soon.

Jonathan's got two bags beside him, one big and one small. In them, He's got everything he expects to need for the next couple of months. A bulletproof vest, two bulletproof boards, a helmet, muscle pain relievers, and a ton of Taiwanese instant noodles. He did his homework before packing these bags. He talked to multiple people who knew about the situation on the ground in Ukraine, from tactical gear suppliers to other volunteer soldiers. All of them warned him about the risks.

If I try to stop him, it's very likely that I would never see him again, and I would find out that he's made it into Ukraine when he's dead.

Upstairs, in the airport hallway, a group of people are waiting to send Jonathan off. He's got some friends there, but also some people he's just met. Some of them are Ukrainians living in Taiwan who heard that Jonathan was going to join the fight and want to see him off. These Ukrainians have worked with local Taiwanese people to raise money to donate supplies and equipment to Ukraine. Some of

That's joy wish Katia.

He has a habit of watching videos before going to sleep. You know, that was his pre bedtime routine, and almost everything he watched at that time was about the war.

She's the hawling and c but los Ukula, don't.

Go and see Gina told me. There was one video that really got to him. In the video, a Russian war plan was firing on the village near Kiev. It was filmed from a civilian's house. The plane fired two shots, one of them broke through the window. A small child started screaming. A woman rushed them downstairs to the base.

Meant the moment, couldn't it.

There was a moment when he saw a kid getting bombed. That kid was of the same age as his son.

Jonathan has a son from a previous relationship.

Tana sold you to the soul.

He said to me, I don't know what I'm gonna do if my kids was bombed like this.

This idea that his own son could be bombed at home, it wasn't coming out of nowhere for Jonathan. For decades, China has been threatening Taiwan with the prospect of animation, and lately China's military has been ramping up aggressive activities across the Taiwan Strait, so when the war broke out in Ukraine, it was easy for Jonathan to see himself in the face of the people who were under attack. Now, of course, lots of people saw this video too and

Well, I'm sure I'll lose weight soon.

He was right about that.

Once Jonathan got to Ukraine. He went to a base of the Ukraine Foreign Legion. It's usually the first stop for foreigners who want to fight for the country. It was there that he made one of his first friends in Ukraine, a young American soldier from Ohio who goes by Shaggy.

Hello, my name is Shaggy. I am a volunteer fighter in Ukraine.

Shaggy said he and Jonathan both showed up at the center and basically said hello, I want to fight, and then they answered a bunch of questions.

You give him many military documents you have, you have to do like medical checks, and then you'll have to like do an interview where they find out your military experience, and then they make a file for you, and then they send you to whatever unit they want to send you.

Shaggy told me he and Jonathan watched a lot of people come and go at the Legion. Many didn't stick around.

So a lot of people came, I guess with like big dreams of being some sort of action hero. They hadn't had any military training, they didn't have any military experience. They just didn't process what exactly they were getting themselves into.

But that wasn't the case. Was him and Jonathan before Ukraine. Shaggy served in the US Army for three years and Jonathan was in the Taiwanese Army for nearly five years. In a Facebook post, Jonathan seemed proud that he stayed on.

We don't take trash here. We take people who are not scared to die, who dare to charge. So if you want to come, come fast. We already kicked four people, oh yesterday. We desperately need more right now.

And to people who met Jonathan early in his time in Ukraine, he looked comfortable there, an eager soldier in a growing conflict.

I think he was really built to be a soldier.

Saffron Chicase is a war photographer who was embedded in the same unit as Jonathan for a while.

You could tell that, especially when he was wearing full kit. Well, you know, some other soldiers, to be completely honest, when they're wearing full kit, you start wondering, like, hey, who who'd you borrow that from?

You know, did you borrow that from?

Did you take that from somebody? Like they seem like they're out of their element, But Jonathan saying was definitely in his element when he wore.

His kit it's just his second skin.

Yeah, second skin. Yeah, that's a good, good way to put it.

So Jonathan was all dressed and ready to play his part, but things got off to a slow start. It happened a month since he arrived in Ukraine and he hadn't gone on a single mission yet. Life at the Foreign Legion turned out to be just about training every day. Here's Shaggy again.

We just do military drills every day. Just wake up, do exercise, come back, eat breakfast, train until lunch. It's more training until later, and I have the rest of the day off. That was pretty much about every day.

The training was helpful at first, but Shaggy said it soon got old. He and Jonathan kept hoping to get assigned to a mission, but instead they were sent to the training ground. Jonathan posted a selfie I still face covered.

Captioned wait Wait Wait.

After nearly two months, Shaggy and Jonathan decided that's it. They were done waiting.

So me, Jonathan and these two other guys we left and we went to a unit that was actively fighting.

Unit that they left for is the forty nine Battalion. I was able to reach one of the other guys who went.

With them, I'll just go by Ron.

Jonathan, Matt, Shaggy and Ron in the Foreign Legion. They spent their time there waiting around but also sizing people up, and they found each other reliable.

That's why I left with the three others because I knew how they would fight compared to if I just stayed there. Because the team that in the legion that was left with brand new, and I didn't know how they would react or do anything when we got into any conflicts.

Just like that, they made a pact going forward, they would move as a group and back each other up. But before Jonathan joined the new unit, some news drew his attention back home to Taiwan. We don't even John Pale the yeah jelouse since I nae said. At the beginning of August twenty twenty two, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise, unprecedented visit to Taiwan, which sparked

And this morning, Chinese officials warned against the quote e grigious political impact of a trip to the self governing islands.

With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi meeting with Taiwan's president overnight.

China is accusing the US of playing with fire.

In response to Pelosi's trip, Beijing announced military exercises in the waters surrounding Taiwan, including conducting live ammunition drolls and firing missiles directly over the island.

The Pentagon is working around the clock monitoring any Chinese movements in the region and securing a plan to keep Pelosi and the congressional delegation she's leading safe.

Taiwan at the time was debating extending its compulsory military service from four months to one year, and Jonathan supported it. He wrote on Facebook, just.

Straight up extended. Where do all these questions come from?

Then he asked himself, should I go back? After all, it was his fear for his home that had brought him to Ukraine in the first place. He talked to the war photographer Seffron about it.

So, Jonathan, why are you out here fighting, fighting for Ukraine?

Why am I heir?

This is a video taped by Seffron when he first met Jonathan this very evening. Sefron was able to grab Jonathan for a quick interview. As he came up the hill from training, the sun set behind him. His face was a bit blurry from the halo.

First of all, where are you from them?

I'm from Taiwan.

Yeah, so on, Jonathan tapped a patch on his chest. I have Ukrainian half Taiwanese flag.

I'm here just because I need to get some experience, you know, some real pen man experience. And yeah, so I can get more experience, get back to Taiwan, and yeah, help my country, defend my country. But I need to help this country first.

I see, I see, And why do you want that experience?

What's what's happening in Taiwan? Then, well, China once wanted to invade Taiwan. So yeah, trying to prepare yourself. Yeah, I see, I see.

Awesome, awesome.

Back at the military base, Jonathan posted a photo. It was just his bad on one side of it. A giant Taiwanese flag was on the wall captioned hold on, and in an Instagram post, he.

Wrote, as for when I'm going back, I'm not sure anyway, I won't go back until I finished the fight.

Jonathan and his new friends Shaggy and Ron had left the Foreign Legion in late August and landed at the Capathian Siege forty nine Infantry Battalion, commonly known as the Siege in Ukraine. At that time, they were stationed at Ezium, a city in eastern Ukraine that holds outsized military importance. One day, the Russians attacked the base where Jonathan and the others were staying. It was a terrifying attack. Seffron was there when it happened.

That's when they sent tanks rolling over the hills and close to our base. That's when the tank started firing on the base. That was a very scary moment for many of the soldiers there, and they talk about that moment a lot.

Jonathan and Ron were away at the time. They left to sign some paperwork in order to keep fighting for Ukraine. But while they were gone, the house they stayed at was a hit. Some artillery landed a meter from where they'd been sleeping.

Essentially, the shelter had was immediately demolished and everything inside that I left there was.

Just like treaded, so you could have been killed basically. Yeah, But Jonathan's fellow soldiers were standing ground. It was around this time that Ukraine made a huge advance and pushed the Russian forces into a stunning retreat. The whole front line on the Russian side had collapsed in eastern Ukraine Easy and where Jonathan's battalion was stationed, was abandoned by the Russians in hate. While waiting for orders on what to do next, Jonathan hung with the boys and regretted

Yeah, it was.

It was fun being with him.

Gina says Jonathan had nicknames for those he bonded with and shared everything with her on FaceTime. She thinks this was perhaps the happiest time in Jonathan's life.

He would tell me about everything and everybody around him, always with a smile. I was to see him smiling more during this time than when he was in Taiwan.

Is That's how I do.

It did not last.

Jonathan's journey in Ukraine takes a dark turn after the break.

After Russia retreated in September twenty twenty two, Ukraine immediately started looking for the next front line to push forward. Jonathan's battalion closed in on the Russians, gradually claiming areas where they used to be and amidst the fun that Jonathan seemed to be having with his friends, a new type of vulnerability seemed to poke through in his posts online. For the first time, Jonathan started to openly acknowledge the very real danger he was in. It came through in

Yes?

How long have you been there?

Four months?

How are you treated there?

What's the casualty rate?

You don't even know how You're gonna die, not alone treatment.

Well, you're not dead yet, are you.

These words on their own might not sound that hurtful, but in Chinese culture you don't go about and ask people whether they're dead or not. It can feel like a curse. Jonathan left a caption on the screenshot.

Of the chat, you're or not that yet? Are you to be? Frank? I don't know if I get to be that lucky every time. In the middle of many nights, it was the sound of bombing that woke me up, and I'm scared. You never know if it'll head your house next time.

Throughout his entire time in Ukraine, Jonathan was warned by everyone about the risks he was taking. Gina told me he really believed that he come home with honor. Jonathan didn't even say goodbye to his son. He didn't see the need to. But here he is in the middle of the night, just about thirty kilometers from the enemy's base. It seems like he started to feel a target creeping on his back. A few days later, he posted this video. You only see a naked light bulb on the ceiling

If you got too many bullets, you can share them with me.

In late October, Jonathan's battalion had a new mission to chase the Russians even further away. They were set out in two days. The first group will be in charge of pushing the front line and attacking the enemy with armored vehicles. The second group, where Jonathan was, would defend the front line right behind the first group, guarding trenches,

Every day we would get shelled periodically throughout the day, sometimes with brad rockets, sometimes tank fire, sometimes with mortars, artillery, just various weapons that they would use.

The Russians used heavy artillery, They fired whatever they had on hand, and the Ukrainians fired back. The ring went on for days, and the mission had gone twice as long as it was supposed to be. People started complaining, some got sick and asked to leave early. Jonathan was constantly drenched, so was he sleeping back, but he wasn't going to leave. On the eight day of the mission, Jonathan was ordered to move bunkers. Someone one hundred meters got sick and left early. He stepped in to feel

Right the hell he said.

In the video, you can see Jonathan flinch and curl up in the bunker. Round told me there's nothing you can do when militaries are just firing artillery at each other. All you can do is to lie low in the bunker and wait for it to pass. You can tell if a cannon is getting close to you by the sound of it, and you just pray that it doesn't land on you. One night, it got too close.

In Hio High.

Do you guys think I'm having fun here? Let me show you what fun I've been having. Does this look like fun to you?

A piece of sharp note hit just about six meters away from Jonathan. The shell cut through his vest and dented his helmet. He filmed a video showing his damaged gear, cursing at the Russians.

Oh they just broke my helmet. You Ah, it's straight up dented. I'm so pissed.

The shell didn't just dan Jonathan's helmet. It also left him with a concussion. A truck was supposed to pick up the injured from the field every day, and the next day Jonathan should have been on it, but the road was so muddy that the truck didn't come the next morning. That following afternoon, as usual, Russia fired another tank round. Luck was not with Jonathan this time.

I remember I was sitting at the commander's table. It's like the small kitchen table, and I was drinking a coffee, and there's a radio charging area, like a counter where they put all the radios and charge them, and they just let them sit there and they keep them on, and you can hear a different radio chatter coming in, and all of a sudden we hear.

It broke out through.

It broke a walk through, which means evacuation. They are requesting evacuation. I'm pretty good at identifying people's voices, so immediately I knew it was Third Company's commander's voice. And you could also tell that there was a very there was a lot of distress in his voice, so much so that I thought he was injured.

Yeah.

A few moments later, as the press officer is listening in and getting more information, we realized that one of the guys is Jonathan. One of the guys is saying, yeah.

But Jonathan was an injured he was dead.

Yeah, I mean you can.

You definitely feel like there's something that drops inside of your stomach. Yeah, your gut feels heavy, and you don't know what to do. You want to do something, but there's nothing that you can do. You know. It's kind of like being late to work and you're on the train and you just wish that you could run. Maybe you could run and get there faster, but you're on a train. There's nothing you could do. You just have to sit there and wait.

And it kind of.

Felt like that, you know.

The news about Jonathan also made its way to run.

I was just angry that that Hugh went down there instead of stayed here with me staying in that position, because you just went down there like.

The day before.

So I'll just punched a tree a couple of times, and then I mean I can't really do anything. We're still there and we're still thinking artillery.

Two days later, over eight thousand miles away, the news reached Gina. It was, of course, the thing she had feared a most since that Saturday back in June twenty twenty two, when she watched him get on that plane Poupati takuha.

I feel like I want to blame him. Why didn't you take care of yourself? Why didn't you go to the doctor after you got hit? And I want to blame myself dash and beIN Why couldn't I help y go?

Jonathan's been gone for over a year now, and the war in Ukraine continue is on with no end in sight. According to US officials, about half a million soldiers from both sides have been killed or injured there since the war began, and back in Taiwan, the fear over a potential Chinese attack still hands heavy in the air, although analysts say it's unlikely anytime soon. At the new home in Taipei where Gina now lives, signs of Jonathan are everywhere.

She replied, that's Young Young from Bloomberg. If you want to see photos of Jonathan Sun's journey, visit Bloomberg dot com. You can also read Young's account of reporting the story there. This episode was produced by Young Young. She and Juan Chin Hua reported the story. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney, along with m O'Brien and Dan ten Kate. Sound design, mixing and engineering was by Young Young and Alexander Sugiura.