In Ukraine’s call to arms, foreign fighters hear cry for justice

Wali has no Ukrainian ancestry and doesn’t speak the language. But when the former Canadian army sniper heard that Russia had launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine and its civilians, he quickly terminated his contract as an IT programmer in Quebec and packed his bags.

Today, Wali (a nickname he uses to protect his identity) finds himself in eastern Ukraine on the banks of the Dnipro River with a group of foreign fighters who heeded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call to join an “international brigade.” Over 20,000 foreigners have expressed interest in fighting, according to the government.

“For me it’s simply that a country, a fascist government, invaded another country, and I can’t stand that,” says Wali, who flew to Warsaw and linked up with like-minded Canadians in Poland before crossing the border into Ukraine. “Ukrainians are not perfect, but in this matter, they really are the victim.”

That sense of injustice and moral clarity is shared by a constellation of Americans, Canadians, and Europeans who have found their way to Ukraine, ready to fight, in recent weeks.

The willingness of individuals – with or without combat experience – to join the war effort and potentially sacrifice their lives has evoked romantic memories of past conflicts in which foreign fighters were lauded as being on the right side of history, notably the American and Spanish civil wars. And, indeed, many say they have responded to Ukraine’s call to arms out of a desire to protect Ukrainians or to fight injustice.

But they also speak of what they are risking to make the journey to Ukraine, and what consequences they or their loved ones might face. At least among the volunteers with whom the Monitor spoke, the desire to fight seems to be born out of the perception that this conflict is not just “close to home,” but also directly threatens their homes.

“It’s my duty”

That sentiment runs particularly strongly among Europeans.

The war is “practically at France’s door,” says Sabrina, an unemployed security guard from Montpellier, France, who asked that her last name be withheld for privacy. She has never fired a gun and would have to leave a 16-year-old son behind if her application is successful. “It’s possible that it won’t stop there,” she says of the conflict. “If I can do something to help people” in Ukraine, she says, “I can protect my kids here.”

Gael Centro, a divorced father with zero military experience living near La Rochelle, France, feels the same way about protecting his four children, aged 6 to 18. “I’m ready to fight so that they don’t have to experience what people in Ukraine are experiencing,” says Mr. Centro, who is processing a new passport in order to go to Ukraine.

Joe, who didn’t give his last name for security reasons, fought in the French Foreign Legion for 10 years before launching a business in Lyon. The conflict in Ukraine struck a chord in him that others did not. Last week, he waved goodbye to his wife and 8-year-old son.

“It’s my duty to help the innocent people who are being killed in Ukraine every day,” he says before joining a Ukraine-bound convoy. Three fellow passengers shared his willingness to sign the three-month government contract that awaits them in Ukraine.

Others on the convoy are seeking different ways to contribute to the war effort, but all are cleareyed about the risks. “Everyone in this car is scared,” says the convoy’s organizer, Franck Juliard, who left his job as a boxing instructor and five children in Nantes. “It might just be a one-way trip.”

Mr. Juliard partially regrets telling his 5-year-old the truth about where he was going. The mother of his children – from whom he is separated – told him their son has been suffering recurrent headaches and fever, and can’t stop crying since he left.

“But I owed him the truth,” he says. “I didn’t want him to suddenly not hear from me and think his father had abandoned him.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly discouraged French citizens from visiting Ukraine for any reason, but that hasn’t swayed the thousands who have joined Facebook groups in the last week in hopes of going to Ukraine to fight against Russia. One private Facebook group, French Volunteers in Ukraine, now has over 11,000 members.

The number of people who have left is hard to verify. The Ukrainian Embassy in France has only said, “There is a very large demand from French citizens.” According to those leaving or trying to leave for Ukraine, small groups of five to 15 people are departing in private caravans on a regular basis.

Combat vets and greenhorns

For Colorado native David King, getting to Ukraine was a solo endeavor. Officials at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, he says, verified his combat experience as a helicopter pilot and accepted his application. They offered no logistical or financial help beyond the coordinates of his destination and a contact in Ukraine.

He sold his truck to finance his flight from the United States to Warsaw. “I brought my own gear,” he says, dressed in green camouflage pants and a hoodie with the U.S. flag.

“Everything to get here is out of my own pocket. It has cost me about every dollar I have,” he explains during a train journey to the Polish town of Przemyśl, a gateway to Ukraine. “We’ll see what kind of support we have out there. Hopefully more than one American will come to Ukraine.”

Mr. King says seeing the suffering of Ukrainian women and children on the news jolted him into action – he had nothing better to do and trusts Jesus to keep him safe. Salvos of expletives betray his excitement about fighting the Russians.

“I’m not here to be cannon fodder,” he stresses. “I’m not going to just go out there and be used as a sacrifice so that a country can say, ‘Look, we have an American soldier that died fighting for us.’ No, I’m going to come in here just like special forces do. I’m going to build a guerrilla unit.”

Not everyone has such a clear sense of mission. British citizen William Farquhar is still mulling it over in northeast England, and admits he would likely skip such an adventure if he had a wife. With no combat experience, the idea of fighting Russians gives him less of a thrill.

“I don’t want to go over there to kill Russians necessarily, but I want to go over there and stop the Russians from killing innocent people,” he says. “I’m not a Rambo figure or a glory hunter. I just want to try and do my bit.”

Legally, Ukraine’s foreign volunteer fighters are entering murky territory. Foreign fighters can be considered mercenaries, nonstate actors such as terrorists and extremists, or volunteers like those headed to Ukraine, says Maya Mirchandani, a senior fellow and an expert on insurgencies at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi. “All of them are governed by different codes of conduct on the battlefield and different regulations.”

Complicating matters, Moscow says that it will treat any foreign fighters captured fighting for Ukraine as mercenaries, or unlawful combatants. In other words, Russia will not grant them protections due under the Geneva Conventions, including the immunity from prosecution normally accorded to soldiers because they were doing their job.

“A mercenary is somebody primarily motivated by financial gain,” says Sandra Krähenmann, a legal expert at Geneva Call and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. “So the people who are volunteers in Ukraine would not qualify as mercenaries, but they run the risk that Russia would treat them as such.”

Western governments indulgent

French law is clear on mercenaries: They are illegal. Nonetheless, the French Foreign Legion, created in 1831 to enlist foreigners, has been sympathetic to the 700 Ukrainians in its ranks; it granted them a 15-day special leave to ensure their relatives’ safety, though they are not authorized to fight in Ukraine.

Some may be doing so anyway. Rumors abound of Ukrainian legionaries deserting to go home and fight. Earlier this month the authorities in Paris stopped a bus on its way to Ukraine carrying 14 Ukrainian Foreign Legion soldiers; five of them had gone AWOL.

Canada forbids its citizens from taking part in military activities against a friendly country; it appears unlikely that Canadians will be prosecuted if they do decide to fight in Ukraine.

“We understand that people of Ukrainian descent want to support their fellow Ukrainians and also that there is a desire to defend the motherland, and in that sense it is their own individual decision,” Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told reporters. “Let me be clear: We are all very supportive of any form of support to Ukrainians right now.”

Across Canada, Ukrainian organizations have mobilized to raise funds to send to the people of Ukraine and to foreign fighters willing to join the cause. Wali, who served in Afghanistan and fought alongside Kurds against the Islamic State in northern Iraq, says his loved ones have been more understanding of his desire to fight against Russia than any other enemy.

“ISIS was far away, right?” he says. “It was terrible, but it was small. They could not threaten the world’s security or the future of the economy of Canada. My perception is people feel that these things that are happening in Ukraine can influence and bring consequences, terrible consequences, to the way we live.”

His wife was not pleased at first. But now she understands.

“I think there was a shift in the mindset in the Western world, that at some point we cannot just wait for Russia and Putin to be good guys, and something has to be done to stop them,” he says over WhatsApp. “This shift happened in my family as well.”