Joining the foreign legion: Meet the veterans heeding Ukraine’s call to fight Russia

One Canadian ex-soldier is selling his motorcycle to fight Russia in Ukraine. An American army veteran says he is already on the front lines in the east of the country. Another Canadian citizen, a medical first responder, crossed the Ukrainian border on Monday ready to join the battle.

The Independent knows of half a dozen former soldiers, emergency responders and regular civilians hailing from countries including the Netherlands and the UK who are crowdsourcing funds to join the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War.

Twitter Spaces, WhatsApp groups, and websites have sprung up detailing how to join a newly established foreign legion. Across social media platforms, many users are busy swapping tips on how to cross the border into western Ukraine and discussing what equipment to bring.

All of them are heeding an extraordinary plea by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for foreign citizens to come to Ukraine and enlist in the army.

“Anyone who wants to join the defence of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals,” he said in a statement released on Sunday.

“There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace,” it added.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba later said that the war-ravaged country had received hundreds of requests from foreigners to join the fighting and, in response, had created an entirely new battalion called the “International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine”.

He urged citizens to sign up at Ukrainian embassies in their home countries.

“Their entry into Ukraine will be simplified to the maximum extent possible," Mr Kuleba said.

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In a separate development on Monday, Mr Zelensky said Ukrainian prisoners with military experience will be released if they are willing to fight against Russian forces.

More than a half-a-million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in the early hours of Thursday. Over 100 civilians have been killed, including seven children, in the ferocious fighting, according to the UN.

Fighting intensified on the fifth day of the invasion, as Russian rocket attacks reportedly killed dozens of people in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and air-raid sirens sounded later on Monday in Kyiv following reports of large explosions in the capital.

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Dozens of Ukrainians living in the UK are also buying surplus military equipment and preparing to head for the front lines in their homeland, according to the BBC.

A group of foreign nationals who are entering Ukraine to fight told The Independent they were all inspired by the harrowing images of Russian air raids and fierce shelling. 

“I was watching the video footage and pictures coming out of Ukraine and what it really came down to was, if this was Canada, we would want people to come and help us,” said Anthony Walker, a Canadian citizen and certified medical first responder who is known online for his comedy persona “Bulletproof Medic”.

He crossed via the Polish border on Monday and said he had been coordinating a group of a dozen army veterans, including a British ex-special forces member, who wanted to join him.

“I said, ‘try to be in Lviv [western Ukraine] in 72 hours’. I am not Ukrainian – I have no ties to Ukraine but I am human – and so are they.”

“We will do whatever is needed, it will probably be a combination of half shooting people, half heeling people who have been shot,” he added.

Also in Canada, an army veteran and former firefighter who asked to remain anonymous said he was selling a $11,000 motorcycle to pay for his travel to join the war in Ukraine. Now working as a paramedic, he explained how he had found a unit of Ukrainian foreign nationals he could join to head to the front – where he is hoping to work as a combat medic.

Another US veteran – who served in the US Army Aviation Branch and is of Slavic descent – said he had wanted to fight “from the minute [he] heard that Russia was invading”.

“[Zelensky’s] call to action simply made the logistics easier,” he said.

Foreign governments including Denmark, Latvia and even the UK have backed the appeal.

Latvia’s parliament has voted unanimously to allow its nationals to fight in Ukraine if willing, while Denmark’s prime minister said citizens would be permitted to battle against Russian forces.

In the UK, foreign secretary Liz Truss sparked controversy on Sunday when she said she would “absolutely” support British nationals who wanted to join the newly established international legion. However, Downing Street later distanced itself from her comments while defence secretary Ben Wallace said Britons with no military training should not join the war in Ukraine.

Jonathan Hall QC, of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, told The Independent that fighting in Ukraine could fall under the UK’s definition of terrorism – but that prosecutions would be unlikely.

Yet such concerns are unlikely to deter foreign nationals from joining the war in Ukraine.

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The Canadian ex-soldier turned paramedic said he believed it was his moral duty to do so. “I feel compelled to assist as the Ukrainian populace is caught in the crossfire of a conflict they didn’t choose,” he said. “It is what is necessary. There are people dying at the hands of real tyranny and oppression”

The US army veteran said that as a former soldier he “knows and carries the burden of war”. “My family has a long tradition of military service. I am also of Slavic descent, so I feel called to stand with my people,” he told The Independent.

“I do not call for war, but if war must come, send me so that my family may have peace.”