Two British volunteer fighters who fought in Ukraine are feared to have been murdered by their fellow foreign legion comrades following alleged disputes over money and petty arguments, it has emerged. 

Daniel Burke, a former paratrooper who went to fight in Ukraine as a volunteer last year, vanished from his flat in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia on August 11 and hasn’t been seen since.

There are now fears that the 36-year-old could have been killed not by Russian soldiers, but by his fellow foreign legion fighters because of reported disputes and jealousy over the amount of money he was receiving in donations.

As Ukrainian police comb the fields of Komyshuvakha village on the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia for any sign of Burke’s body, cops further east are investigating the death of former British soldier Jordan Chadwick, 31, near Bakhmut. 

Chadwick, a former Scots Guard from Burnley, Lancashire, who also volunteered to fight for Ukraine, was found dead in a body of water with his hands tied behind his back in June.

A source told the Daily Telegraph that Chadwick had been shot during a petty argument that got out of hand, raising further mystery surrounding his death.

The two cases involving Burke and Chadwick are not thought to be linked, but they have raised fears among fellow comrades that they may have been murdered by fellow foreign legion fighters. 

Ukrainian police, already struggling with a heavy caseload since the war began, are now investigating claims that Burke could have been killed following disputes over money. 

Burke, who had served in Afghanistan with the British army before fighting against ISIS with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, had travelled to Ukraine to fight as a volunteer last year. 

He had told fellow fighters that he was receiving £8,000 a month from American millionaires in donations thanks to his public profile – and there are fears this could have sparked envy among the troops. 

Police are also analysing CCTV footage of Burke’s movements in a car that his friend, Australian volunteer Norine Abdelfetah, had lent him on the day he disappeared.

Abdelfetah told police he had dropped Burke off at his apartment on August 11 and had lent the Briton his car for the weekend after he complained about having food poisoning, reports the Telegraph. 

The Australian said there was no sign of Burke when he came to collect the car two days later, and a day later, Adbelfetah’s colleage, James Sutton, told police. 

While a source told the Telegraph that in Chadwick’s case, there are fears he was shot during a petty argument, there is further speculation that he may have drowned in an initiation ceremony gone wrong.

A YouTube channel has claimed the ceremony was devised by a fellow volunteer who used to be in the SAS and said the water found in his lungs did not match the water where he was found according to forensic examinations.

Chadwick’s death only emerged last week when his mother, Brenda Chadwick, told the BBC she was ‘devastated’ by the death of her son, who served in the Scots Guards from 2011 to 2015.

‘His passion to support freedom and assist others with his skills led him to leave the UK and travel to Ukraine in early October 2022,’ Brenda said. 

‘Although we are extremely proud of his unwavering courage and resilience, his death has been devastating. No words can be found to describe the loss of such a short life.

‘A son, brother, grandson, nephew and uncle, who was loved immensely.’

The speculation that Burke and Chadwick may have been killed by their fellow foreign legion fighters exposes the dark side of the voluntary service fighting in Ukraine, with volunteers complaining there is very little vetting done.

‘There are guys who shouldn’t be here – some with criminal records, some with PTSD, and some with drug and alcohol problems or who use steroids,’ one volunteer told the paper. 

The UK’s Foreign Office declined to comment on the lines of inquiry currently being investigated in relation to Burke and Chadwick’s cases.

For a moment, it looked as if Ben Shelton’s biggest strength could be his undoing.

The young American, who reached serve speeds of up to 149mph in his last match, fired 12 aces on Tuesday night and continually unsettled Frances Tiafoe with his power.

But he just couldn’t get his serves to stick over the course of two crucial tiebreak points in the third set, as two consecutive double faults turned a 6-5 advantage into a 7-6 hole.

Not for the only time on the night, though, the 20-year-old found a way to dig himself out, scraping himself to a tiebreak win and an eventual 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-2 victory.

It had been 15 years since two black American men faced off at Arthur Ashe Stadium before Tiafoe and Shelton took center stage on Tuesday. 

The previous time a matchup of that description occurred, a 28-year-old James Blake outlasted a 19-year-old Donald Young in five sets, and there was a similar – if slightly less pronounced – gap in experience this time around.

Twenty year-old Shelton has been on the ATP Tour for less than a year, while 25-year-old Tiafoe turned pro back in 2015.

But on Tuesday, it was Shelton who looked like the veteran in what felt like a significant night for American tennis.

There have been distractions and misbehavior from fans at other matches this tournament, but not on this soupy night in Queens, as a crowd including Anna Wintour, Emma Watson and rapper Meek Mill seemed to fully grasp the magnitude of this meeting.

The stakes weren’t lost on the players, either, as Tiafoe nervously fired two double faults in the first game before recovering in a deuce to hold serve.

The next three games would follow that script as the players continued to hold serve, with Shelton’s cannon reaching 139mph to force an error from Tiafoe in a deuce and even the set at 2-2.

Then came the breakthrough.

Tiafoe initially escaped two break points in the next game, with the world no. 10 tallying 10 unforced errors in half as many games.

But after one of several attempted drop shots in the game landed out to force a second break point, Tiafoe could not recover from a third break attempt.

The excitable Shelton let out a yell, his box did the University of Florida’s signature ‘gator chomp’ celebration (he played there for two years), and the Atlanta native was on his way to a first-set win.

Tiafoe struggled to match his opponent’s stunning power, but the newcomer showed guile as well. 

A delicately hit backhand winner to take a 15-30 lead in the seventh game showed a player mastering his tools in real time, and helped balloon his lead to 5-2 with another break.

He served for the set in the next game.

Things almost went off the rails again for Tiafoe early in the next set, as he escaped a break at 1-1 to hold serve and regain the lead.

Shelton’s strength of service had, to this point, given his opponent precious little margin for error, and the onus was on his ‘brother’ Tiafoe, as he referred to him earlier in the week, to punch back.

He did so with the set at 3-2 him, forcing a serving Shelton into his sloppiest game of the night, and survived another break point the following game to take a comfy 5-2 set lead.

Two games later, it was Tiafoe’s turn to celebrate, as he fired an ace to clinch a 6-3 set win.

He nodded his head repeatedly as the crowd showed its appreciation for the 2022 semifinalist. 

If both of these players fed off the crowd at Ashe, though, it was Shelton who appeared more well-nourished for the rest of the match. 

There was no Shelton counterpart to the cries of ‘Let’s go ‘Foe,’ but the crowd appreciated the underdog’s clutch moments and he ultimately produced more of them than his elder.

If the first set was about Shelton’s power, the third was defined by his resilience as he and Tiafoe each broke each other three times in a truly wonky period of play.  

Tiafoe hit a beautiful cross court backhand winner to make it 15-30 in the first game of the set – perhaps his best shot of night – but it ultimately wasn’t a sign of things to come despite beginning the set up a break.

Shelton responded immediately the next game with a break – and a highlight-reel, cross-court winner – of his own to gain back control of the set and eventually take a 3-1 lead after breaking his opponent again.

After two more breaks from Tiafoe and yet another reply from Shelton, the final four games saw each player hold serve twice, with one turn of play in particular showing the young Shelton’s fearlessness.

At 4-4, Shelton found himself staring down a deuce after two straight double faults.  He missed on a fifth straight serve too on the next point, but had the gumption to fire a 119mph second serve to set up a winner and give himself a slender 5-4 lead.

What came soon after was an epic, topsy-turvy tiebreak where Shelton ultimately held his nerve despite a couple of major wobbles.

The first-time Slam semifinalist fired off two straight aces to open up a 3-2 lead, before finding himself up 6-5 with a chance to serve for the set.

But he double-faulted his next two points, putting Tiafoe into the driver’s seat before he fired a cathartic winner down the line to even things up. 

He won the set two points later and didn’t look back in the fifth.

Shelton broke Tiafoe twice more, including in the first game of the set, and will now face Novak Djokovic on Friday in the semifinals.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy seems to have accepted the GOP-led House will not be able to push through 12 spending bills before the end of the fiscal year, and will instead need to pass a resolution to keep government funding at its current levels temporarily. 

Congress has until September 30 to pass legislation to fund the government through fiscal year 2024 – but the House does not return from recess until September 11. 

The speaker told his rank-and-file members on a press call Monday that a short term CR, or continuing resolution, was the most likely path forward – prompting immediate opposition from a number of Republicans who would rather not see the process drawn out. 

A continuing resolution would extend current spending levels – which were set under Democrats in last year’s 117th Congress – and buy more time for Congress to hash out its differences. 

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that he and McCarthy had met ‘a few weeks back’ and agreed to pursue a CR. 

‘I thought that was a good sign,’ Schumer told Morning Joe on Wednesday. ‘We are working together to avoid that shutdown in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, but the House, McCarthy is going to have the dilemma of dealing with these hard right people who are just totally destructive and angry.’ 

McCarthy has promised to push through 12 separate funding bills, which set spending levels for each agency separately, rather than an over-arching ‘omnibus’ bill. 

Under an omnibus, members are often forced to choose between voting for provisions they don’t agree with or holding up funding for the government and forcing a shutdown. 

But some conservatives say Congress should not punt its disagreements down the road. 

‘I am a NO on any Continuing Resolution that only kicks the can down the road,’ moderate GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales wrote on X, formerly Twitter. ‘Lock Congress in a room until we pass a conservative budget void of excess financial waste.’ 

Conservative Rep. Chip Roy, Texas, came out forcefully against a continuing resolution. 

‘Under no circumstances will I support a ‘continuing resolution’ to fund the government at the bloated, corrupt 2023 levels,’ he said in a statement. ‘This is especially true if it were to stupidly expire in December.’ 

He also suggested Congress should have worked through the August recess to get spending bills done. 

‘I might – might – support a short series of 24 hour ‘CR’s’ to create maximum pain for Congress to do its damned job, which – by the way – we could be doing in Washington right now.’

McCarthy could pass short-term continuing resolution with the help of Democrats, but the pushback from conservatives again prompts the question of how McCarthy will navigate the spending battle and secure budget cuts for fiscal year 2024 without angering the rightward flank. 

Even before the final vote on a short term CR, McCarthy would need the support of almost all Republicans for a procedural vote on the rule for the CR. Democrats typically do not assist the GOP speaker with passing the rule on a bill, even if they do vote for the final bill.  

‘McCarthy has been allegedly talking about, ‘Well, we’ll do a three-month CR into December.’ That’s exactly the playbook to try to get it done and to roll us,’ Roy said in a Spaces conversation on X on Monday. ‘So we’re going to have to throw everything we have in fighting that heading into September.’ 

If the House did a longer-term CR to stretch into the new year, an automatic one percent across-the-board cut would kick in beginning January 1. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said a short-term deal followed by one percent cuts could be preferable to Democrats. 

‘Joe Biden’s going to get 100% of what he wants, followed by 99% of what he wants,’ he said in a Spaces conversation on X Monday night. 

Some of the conservative demands include immediately cutting funding to agencies tied up in Donald Trump’s legal woes. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, said he would not vote for a CR that doesn’t ‘smash’ the Department of Justice’s budget. 

‘I WILL NOT vote for any continuing resolution that doesn’t smash Biden’s DOJ into a million pieces,’ Jackson wrote on X. ‘The DOJ has very rapidly become the enemy of the American people, and if nothing is done soon, our rights will be GONE. We MUST defund it!!’ 

Roy, meanwhile, has said he would not vote for a stopgap or full-year spending bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without policy changes. 

Last week, fourteen other House Republicans from Texas signed on to a letter from Roy promising to oppose DHS funding without major changes. 

McCarthy did not appear to be on board with holding up funding for DHS ahead of the August recess. ‘I want my border secure. I’m going to fund my border,’ McCarthy said. 

Further complicating matters is Ukraine funding. 

President Biden requested $40 billion in supplemental funding, including some $24 billion for Ukraine last week. The House’s right-wing members balked at the request – 12 of them wrote a letter to the White House expressing their outrage. 

‘Americans are tired of funding endless wars and want policies that not only help restore fiscal sanity in Washington, but also put America and American citizens first,’ the lawmakers wrote. 

The White House requested the supplemental aid ‘as part of a potential short-term continuing resolution for the first quarter of FY 2024,’ though it’s not clear if leadership would pair Ukraine aid with the spending bill.

Last month, 89 House Republicans voted for an amendment to strip $300 million in aid for Ukraine from the Pentagon’s yearly spending bill. 

As Mohammad Hassan lay seriously injured, 1,300ft from the summit of K2, dozens of fellow climbers carefully edged towards him, risking their lives as they clung to the side of the narrow ledge.

And then they kept on going – clambering around the stricken 27-year-old as they left him to die while continuing their own personal bid for glory.

Now, after footage of the incident emerged, their decision to leave him has caused an outcry among the mountaineering community.

Hassan, a father-of-three high-altitude porter from Pakistan who worked for Lela Peak Expedition, died after an avalanche on July 27 pushed him over a ledge while scaling the 28,300ft K2 mountain.

The footage shows people physically climbing over Hassan as he lies helpless in the deep snow. 

The video then pans over to show clouds several thousand feet below them, revealing just how high they were when the footage was taken.

The air is so thin at this elevation that all people seen in the video were wearing oxygen masks. 

It appears that just one person ended up helping him, an unknown rescuer who managed to keep him conscious for a while before he died of his injuries. There was no rescue operation to help the young man. 

Fellow climber Wilhelm Steindl, who also participated in the climb but had returned to the base camp earlier due to the dangerous conditions, told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that he was sickened by the inaction of the fellow climbers.

‘It was a very heated, competitive race to the top. What happened there is scandalous.

‘A living person is left behind so records can be set. It only took 3 or 4 people to save him. Had I seen it, I would have climbed up to help the poor man.’ 

Despite these strong claims, differing accounts of the tragedy have circulated, leading to uncertainty over exactly what took place all the way up K2. 

Lakpa Sherpa, a mountaineer who was on the climb and took the video, told MailOnline that the footage doesn’t capture what actually happened: 

‘Some of the climbers and sherpas tried to save his life although he passed away. 

‘The climbers have all spent a lot of money to do this climb and there is the value of time too for the climb. Hundreds of climbers tried to save him but they cannot give up their mission. 

‘The reality is they have tried to save the life and this is below the great serace bottle neck, where it’s impossible to cross without rope so it’s a very difficult situation. 

‘Many climbers and sherpas told him to go back as he had very poor equipment and was not well equipped and also there was very bad weather during the summit window but he did not listen and then he fell down. 

‘It was very difficult to bring the body down. They have to summit the mountain. There’s only a little chance for them.’ 

Bulgarian climber Silvia Azdreeva, who was on the trip when Hassan died, said in a Facebook post that climbing K2 is not for the faint-hearted: ‘On K2 there is no one to save you that fast, you’ll have to wait for days if something happens to you. 

‘This mountain is not for everyone. K2 has a very heavy character.’

Shockingly, Wilhelm Steindl claimed that a party was held shortly after Mr. Hassan died in celebration of Kristin Harila, a Norwegian woman who set a new world record after she climbed the 14 of the world’s highest peaks in just over 3 months.

‘I didn’t go, I was disgusted. Someone had just died up there,’ the furious climber said.

He revealed in a GoFundMe set up for Mr. Hassan’s family that he leaves behind three children and a wife, as well as an elderly grandmother. 

At time of publication, the page has already raised £63,000.

The newly-crowned world record holder Kristin Harila said of the tragedy: ‘My heart and thoughts and prayers go out to the family and loved ones of Hassan and I feel very sad about this whole situation.’

MailOnline has contacted Lela Peak Expedition for comment. 

K2 is considered to be the world’s most dangerous mountain as it has a fatality rate of around 19 per cent compared to just 6.5 per cent on Everest, according to estimates.

For every 20 people who summit Everest, only one summits K2 and there are inherently more risks.

Routes on K2 are not as defined or well laid out with the climb being much more technical with a combination of rock, ice and alpine climbing – and avalanches are also much more common.

The mountain gained notoriety as the ‘Savage Mountain’ after American mountaineer George Bell came down from the peak in 1953 where he nearly slipped to his death.

‘It’s a savage mountain that tries to kill you,’ he observed following his traitorous climb.