Foreign fighters on the side of the Ukrainians

An estimated 20,000 foreign fighters have gone to Ukraine to fight. Some countries have enacted special laws to allow this. Ukraine too.

On February 27, three days after the start of the war in Ukraine, the country’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba called on foreign nationals to join the Ukrainians in the fight against the Russian army.

“Very rough numbers are about 20,000. Most of them are Europeans and North Americans. There are 500 from Belarus and also some Japanese volunteers,” Ed Arnold, a European security researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, told DW. London-based think tank.

Some German media outlets report that up to 1,000 German citizens have traveled to Ukraine. Answering a relevant question, the representative of the German Ministry of Defense stated that: “The federal Ministry of Defense has no relevant knowledge”. The news can not be confirmed by the German Ministry of Interior. But they know that a very small number of German far-right people have indeed left to fight on the side of the Ukrainians.

Who are these foreign nationals?

So who are the foreign nationals involved in the war? “Most of them are volunteers with little to no military experience,” Casper Recavek, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research on Extremism, told DW.

Those who do not have military experience are most likely to be assigned logistical tasks such as transporting supplies or personnel to the front line.

“This is a conflict between states. I have reports from battlefield veterans who say they have used far more ammunition in four days than they did on four full tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It’s not the same type of conflict they are used to,” said Arnold, who served as a British infantry officer serving in Afghanistan. Ukrainian side in the Donbas war.

Is their participation legal?

One question that comes up again and again is whether it is really legal for foreign volunteers to take part in the war. In recent days, some European and Baltic countries, such as Lithuania and Latvia, have passed emergency laws allowing their citizens to take part in the war.

“In addition, Ukraine also passed a law two years ago that allowed foreign fighters to become citizens within a few months of submitting the application and thus formally join the Ukrainian side as Ukrainian citizens,” said Egle Murauskaite, who is located in Lithuania and is responsible for simulating high-level civil-military crises in Europe.

Rob Maj

Edited by: Maria Rigoutsou

Source: Deutsche Welle