For foreign fighters in Ukraine this is a war like no other they have seen

DRUZHKIVKA, Ukraine – Four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, foreign combat veterans who responded to the Ukrainian president’s call to fight are grappling with the harsh reality of a war different from the others they have seen.

Many are American and British veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraqwhere they could count on calling for airstrikes for protection and other critical support.

In Ukraine, the military effort is essentially essentialleaving the Ukrainian forces and their foreign fighting allies to face a larger and better armed Russian invasion force with no essentials, such as regular meals and even some tools of modern warfare that could help.

“This is a lot more intense than what I saw in Afghanistan, ”said Brian, a former US Army paratrooper who didn’t want his last name used for security reasons.

“This is fighting, fighting.”

That reality, the volunteer fighters say, has alienated some of the hundreds of men who first came to Ukraine to help fight what many have deemed a just and deeply inequitable war.

Of those left, some now work directly for the Ukrainian army, which used them silent and effective to fill the skills gaps at the forefront, including desperate need of doctors.

Some would-be wrestlers are still roaming the country; Their goals vary and include building an online following, getting their first taste of battle, or, in some cases, finding others who espouse far-right beliefs, according to their fellow combatants.

But the more professional foreign soldiers they have increasingly earned the respect of their Ukrainian comrades, as well as the country’s leaders.

Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, especially applauded those who recently fought in one of the toughest battles of the war, in Sievierdonetsk, saying that their “motivation, professionalism, preparation for urban warfare” played a role. important great role in keeping Russian troops out for so long.

They are “just what we needed,” he said.

The foreign death toll pales in comparison to the losses suffered by Ukrainians, but the risks faced by fighters from abroad have intensified in recent weeks.

On June 9, Russia sentenced three captured foreigners to death and at least news emerged four American deaths on the battlefield.

In the most recent case, the State Department confirmed on June 22 that Stephen Zabielski, 52, an Army veteran, was killed in May after stepping on a mine.

The professionalism described by Arestovych was born from the initial chaos of a flood of volunteers.

Some were seasoned combat veterans; others were would-be fighters who arrived with bulging backpacks filled with military equipment, but with no frontline experience.

They came to answer what was essentially an SOS call from Zelensky in the early days of the war, when many world leaders and analysts thought the Russians would quickly defeat the Ukrainians.

I arrive

Within days, the volunteers began flying to Poland and heading to the Ukrainian border.

Within weeks, the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, 90 minutes from the border, was full of Americans and other foreigners who arrive by train and bus trying to find a way to get to the front.

As there was hardly any structure in place to decide who could fight or to help newcomers find positions, some volunteers wandered around Lviv until they found someone who could refer them to a recruiting office.

Others returned home frustrated.

“It was an attempt to get support for a cause that didn’t seem so promising at the end of February,” said Kacper Rekawek, a researcher at the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, of Zelensky.

“He came out of the presidential circle and I don’t think all the elements of the bureaucracy, military, civilian, whatever, got the memo right away.”

Four months after the war, much of the foreign forces remain opaque.

Arestovych esteems him 1,000 participated in battles.

But without a central sorting center for volunteers, no one knows for sure.

hundreds or thousands others have come to help with non-combat tasks.

President Joe Biden discouraged Americans from going to Ukraine, a point he recently reiterated when two American veterans went missing and were reported to be in Russian custody.

The best known of the foreign fighting groups is the International Legion for Defense of Ukrainecreated by the Ukrainian government online with the so-called Zelensky.

recruits

The Legion does not provide the numbers of its members, but its spokesman, Damien Magrou, said that among the countries represented in its ranks, the United States and Great Britain were in the lead.

All accepted by the Legion they sign contracts with the Ukrainian army, they serve in units where foreign non-commissioned officers answer to Ukrainian officers and receive the same salary than the Ukrainian military forces, he said.

A video posted recently on social media showed Legion fighters in intense urban combat.

The video, which was edited and was reportedly shot in Sievierdonetsk, shows a group of clearly well-trained and well-equipped soldiers moving through bombed-out buildings and firing at Russian troops.

the movie Hollywood-style was a clear indicator of some of the skills of the Legion and the staff members of their units:

seasoned professional fighters who are now directly involved in some of the fiercest battles of the war.

Much of the International Legion’s carefully managed media efforts have been targeted increase foreign public support Ukraine’s war effort and argue that Ukraine needs more advanced weapons.

Magrou said that after a broader initial acceptance rate, the Legion now only accepts those with combat experience, who have passed psychological checks and background and who do not express extremist views.

But some of those rejected by the Legion, he said, were accepted by other foreign units or came to the front and formed their own fighting groups.

“Volunteer groups can be anywhere from 15 guys with three guns” to larger and better organized groups, said Magrou, a French-Norwegian corporate lawyer who lived and worked in Ukraine when Russia invaded last February.

Removing extremists from the many fighters who want to help Ukraine has proved difficult.

Two frontline recruits, who did not want to provide their names for security reasons, described encounters in the shelters with American and Scandinavian members of the White Supremacist Aryan Brotherhoodincluding some with tattoos in prison, who were trying to make their way his in battle.

The Legion may also have had problems.

A photograph on his Facebook page of dead members depicted a French victim, Wilfried Blériot, wearing a patch from the “Misanthropic Division”, a far-right group with white supremacist views.

In another photo, posted on Telegram by the Misanthropic Division, he is wearing one of their shirts.

Magrou said he spoke to Blériot’s mother and his other recruits, who claimed that Blériot had befriended a member of the Misanthropic Division, but that Blériot was unaware of the group’s racist identity.

The reasons why fighters choose to risk their lives for a country other than their own vary widely.

Brian, the American veteran who fought Afghanistan, he said he came because years ago he trained Ukrainians to try to keep Russian-backed separatist forces at bay, and many of the Ukrainian friends he made were killed in those battles.

Brian, the son of a marine, said he would stay, even though he found out his wife was pregnant, because he realized she wasn’t done with the army yet, and because he believes he is. Make the difference in an unequal battle.

Instead of the active combat that many would-be recruits envisioned, Brian’s unit, led by a Danish platoon commander and working with Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, focused on mundane but vital tasks.

Those included helping Ukrainian forces shake up some of the doctrines of Soviet style which prevent them from sharing information between units and empowering lower-ranking leaders.

For some other Americans and Brits who carry the baggage of unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even for some who haven’t fought, the call to arms for what they see as a clear cause proved irresistible.

Matthew Robinson, a Brit who was a US military contractor in Iraq, said he saw his service in Ukraine as a way to “redemption“For benefiting from a war which he now deems unjust.

Robinson ended up training Ukrainian defense forces across the country, including near the eastern front, the scene of some of the most intense battles of the war.

There, Ukrainian forces face almost constant artillery attacks.

“Unless you fought in World War II, when did you experience it?” I ask.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported from Druzhkivka, Valerie Hopkins from Kiev, Ukraine, and Jane Arraf from Baghdad. Megan Specia contributed reports from Lviv, Ukraine. Michael Schwirtz also contributed to the reporting.

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