Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter that anyone wishing to participate should contact Ukraine’s diplomatic missions in the countries concerned. “Together we defeated Hitler and we will defeat Putin,” Kuleba said on Sunday.
Foreign nationals have been fighting in Ukraine since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists seized parts of the Donbas region. But experts tracking foreign fighters say it is a step far beyond ambition. Ukrainian embassies are openly involved in recruiting fighters, while Western governments are offering support to those who want to join the Ukrainian side.
“It’s potentially much, much bigger than it was in 2014,” said Kachper Rekauek, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Extremism at the University of Oslo who has studied foreign fighters in Ukraine. Rekawek estimated the number of foreigners involved in this earlier battle at about 1,000.
The risks are extreme. Ukrainian cities have suffered cycles of intense shelling, and talks between Kyiv and Moscow have not led to any breakthroughs. At least 11 people were killed in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Monday, and more were injured, Ukrainian authorities said. Alleged cluster munitions have struck buildings in residential areas of the city.
“It is very dangerous for people to travel [to Ukraine] at the moment, “said Ed Arnold, a European Security Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute’s London-based think tank. “Fighting in war is not as easy as taking up arms and just fighting,” he said.
Arnold, who served as an infantry officer in the British Army, said it could be safer for those with military training. However, “if you don’t have military training, that’s a very stupid idea,” he added.
So far, most of Ukraine’s foreign fighters are from other post-Soviet countries such as Georgia and Belarus. Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of a group called the Georgian Legion, which is already fighting in Ukraine, said he was coordinating with the government in Kiev to help recruit international fighters. He currently has more than 200 people under his command, he said.
“They are mostly Georgians, but they have different nationalities,” Mamulashvili said, adding that some of them included people from Britain, the United States, Albania and India. “These are very different boys and we are still waiting,” Mamulashvili said.
The Georgian Legion was the only international group in Ukraine. Now the responsibility of the Georgian fighters was to create “a larger, say, brigade,” Mamulashvili said.
If their numbers grow as expected, the Ukrainian war could mark the largest recruitment of international fighters in Europe since the Spanish Civil War.
At least 50,000 people joined the International Brigades in support of the Soviet-backed republican cause in Spain between 1936 and 1938. Although the Republicans were eventually defeated by Nazi nationalist forces, they became an international cause, a celebrity for the left, inspiring the writings of George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway.
Lisa Kirschenbaum, a professor of history at the University of West Chester, said that although there were no such ideological appeals from Ukraine, there were “clear parallels” between recruiting foreigners during the Spanish War and current recruitment in Ukraine, even before language.
“The design of the call for volunteers, equating the war against Hitler with the war against Putin, implies a more symbolic role or, if you wish, a propaganda goal,” Kirschenbaum wrote in an email. “The arrival of foreign volunteers practically marks the cause of Ukraine as the cause of the ‘civilized’ world.”
In speeches and votes, officials from various European nations have allowed or appear to have encouraged their citizens to fight on behalf of Ukraine.
On Monday, Latvian lawmakers voted unanimously to allow Latvian citizens to fight in Ukraine, according to Reuters. In Denmark, Prime Minister Mete Frederiksen said on Sunday that “there is nothing at first glance that could legally prevent someone from going to Ukraine to take part in the conflict on the Ukrainian side.”
In Canada, Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie said Sunday that while the government warns that traveling to Ukraine is dangerous, joining the battle is an individual choice Canadians can make for themselves.
“We understand that people of Ukrainian descent want to support their fellow Ukrainians, and that there is a desire to defend the homeland, and in that sense it is their personal decision,” Jolie told a news conference.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the BBC on Sunday that she supported people in Britain who might want to travel to Ukraine to join the battle, adding that Ukrainians were fighting for freedom, “not just for Ukraine. but also for the whole of Europe. “
However, on Monday, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace was asked by Sky News about Trus’s comments and said there were “better ways” for civilians to “contribute to Ukraine’s security”.
Although he agreed with Trus that Ukraine is defending democracy, traveling to Ukraine could be dangerous for people without military experience, Wallace said. “If you want to help and are a citizen of the United Kingdom, come and join our armed forces,” he said.
Other countries are even more cautious. Ukrainian authorities said on Monday that the Georgian government had blocked a charter flight from Tbilisi to Poland, in which there were foreign nationals ready to fight.
Georgian Legion Commander Mamulashvili said about 500 Georgians were expected to join him in Ukraine before the flight was blocked. “I would say that the Georgian government is completely pro-Russian and supports the Russian occupation of Ukraine,” Mamulashvili added, although Georgia itself was attacked by Russia and condemned the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Some countries also have laws that may prohibit citizens from fighting in Ukraine. In the United Kingdom, a law of 1870 forbade fighting alongside any country that was at war with a country that was at peace with Britain. However, the law has not been used for centuries, including during the Spanish Civil War.
Much of the Western focus on foreign fighters in recent years has been on citizens joining extremist groups such as Islamic State in Syria. Although the British government has tried to persecute some citizens who fought with Kurdish militias in northern Syria, the cases have fallen apart due to the difficulty of determining whether these are terrorist acts.
“There is a gray area,” said Rekauek, a researcher at the University of Oslo. “We are in this fantastic world in the sense that being a foreign terrorist fighter is illegal everywhere. But to be a foreign fighter? Oh, this is a slightly different fish kettle.
Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy who tracks the role of foreign nationals during the Syrian war, said Ukraine’s context makes it significantly different for Western governments.
“Foreigners who voluntarily fight on behalf of Ukraine are unlikely to return home and then have an ideology that makes them want to carry out some kind of terrorist attack in the heart of London, Paris or Brussels,” Zelin said. .
But the war is unpredictable. “Obviously there is a danger among the circle of people who could travel to fight for Ukraine, there are those who are looking for excitement or just enjoying the battle,” said Anthony Dworkin, a senior political associate at the European Council on Foreign Relations. .
“Obviously, it is understandable why Ukraine would welcome anyone who is ready to fight, but the countries must be very careful to encourage it,” Dworkin added.