Two years later, many are disillusioned and dead

• The International Legion of Ukraine was founded in 2022 and is a home for foreigners eager to fight against Russia.
• Ukraine said 20,000 had signed up, although experts said 4,000 was a more realistic maximum number.
• In 2024, the Legion has been exhausted by years of harsh reality and, even in Ukraine, extremely high casualties.

Three days after Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky loudly called on “friends of peace and democracy” to join the fight from abroad.

Zelensky’s International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine (ILDU) was created and reflects this International Brigades who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.

Many answered. Outside the Ukrainian embassy in London, Business Insider found men lining up to serve.

“If they have to put a gun in my hand and put me in charge, then that’s what they have to do,” said one, a nightclub employee.

“It’s better than sitting around with your thumb up your ass.”

It was from these recruits – some with military experience, others without – that the Legion emerged.

It was deployed to the front lines in some of the war’s toughest battles, with each of its members dying.

Carl Larson, a US veteran who served in Iraq, fought for three months in the summer of 2022 over the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. He told BI that his comrades’ motivations were mixed.

“Many of us were there for the right reasons, to defend democracy,” he said.

“Many others, however, were there for the wrong reasons: adrenaline junkies, people looking for a replacement family or because they had personal problems at home.”

Studies by the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) from July and September last year came to a similar conclusion.

Some made their posts famous on social media and published impassioned dispatches from the war zone.

BI’s coverage of the International Legion since its founding found that recruits were a mix of qualified veterans, glory seekers and people who wanted to give meaning to their often chaotic lives but were completely unsuited to a military role in a war zone.

In one case, a Legion volunteer from Alabama even defected to Russia.

Some volunteers barely lasted a week. A Russian missile attack in March 2022 hit a base near Lviv used for foreign fighters.

Ukrainian officials said dozens of Ukrainians were killed and more than 100 foreign volunteers were injured, ending their operations before they began.

Marco Bocchese, assistant professor of international relations at Webster Vienna Private University and author of the September RUSI study, called the attack a “turning point” for many foreign volunteers.

Ukraine had initially said 20,000 foreign volunteers had signed up to fight. Bocchese told BI that this figure was “pure propaganda.”

Last January, the Washington Post estimated that the number was probably closer to 3,000.

Four experts contacted for this report estimated the Legion’s strength at 1,000 to 2,000 in May 2024.

Some foreigners have found another home in the Ukrainian military: in the intelligence services or in separate Ukrainian units, such as the elite Chosen Company – a reconnaissance and assault unit made up of US and Australian volunteers within the 59th Motorized Brigade.

This video from 2023 shows the Chosen Company at work:

Matteo Pugliese, a researcher at the University of Barcelona who authored the July study, told BI that Ukrainian intelligence coordinates its own branch of foreign volunteers.

“These include three Russian groups, Belarusian units, the Georgian Legion and Western veterans with better combat skills,” he said.

All in all, this could add another 1,000 or 2,000 soldiers, making a total of 3,000 to 4,000 foreigners fighting in Ukraine.

They make up, at best, a small portion of Ukraine’s 800,000-strong military.

Fallen

International fighters proved “more expendable than Ukrainian soldiers for high-risk operations,” Pugliese said.

In fact, Larson, who led a 25-man legionnaire platoon in 2022, said he and his men were a “sacrificial unit.”

“We were a speed bump,” he said. “If the Russians had come, we might have been able to hold them off for an hour.”

Larson said many foreign volunteers, particularly those who had fought in places like the deserts of Iraq, had difficulty adapting to both the terrain in Ukraine and the weapons used there.

“We lost a lot of people to drones,” he said.

The Legion’s press service declined to comment on its strength for security reasons.

A spokesman, Oleksandr Shahuri, said more than 100 nationalities had joined.

A report from Task and Purpose in February of this year concluded that at least 50 of those who died were U.S. citizens, a number that is likely an underestimate.

Of those 50, most had served in the U.S. military, including more than 20 Army veterans and 12 former Marines.

There was a Green Beret and a Navy SEAL. Some had conventional military careers, others left the country after getting into trouble.

A US State Department spokesman said there was no official tally.

“Our ability to verify reports of deaths of U.S. citizens in Ukraine is extremely limited,” they said. “In addition, not all deaths of U.S. citizens may be reported to U.S. authorities. For these reasons, we cannot provide a definitive count of all U.S. citizens killed.”

The future of the Legion

Earlier this year, Zelensky issued a decree allowing foreign nationals who are in the country legally to join the National Guard. He also proposed a law that would make it easier for foreigners defending Ukraine to obtain citizenship.

That could prove “very tempting” for some foreign volunteers, Bocchese said. “Many want to make Ukraine their future home.”

In some states, fighting for Ukraine means giving up freedom at home. Austria, Montenegro, Kosovo and India have made joining illegal.

“Some will face criminal sanctions upon their return home for joining a foreign entity,” Bocchese said.

For that reason, many hope to gain citizenship and “put down roots,” said Larson, the U.S. veteran.

Ukraine’s efforts to draft its own men mean the Legion is “no longer strategically crucial or relevant,” Pugliese said.

In April 2024, it will increase payments for Ukrainian volunteers, introduce new penalties for conscientious objection and attempt to force Ukrainian men living abroad to return home.

Enrollments have dropped by two-thirds since the March 2022 flood, according to Larson, who continues to help Legion recruiters.

“Now half of the registrations come from Latin America,” he noted, a big change.

In fall 2023, the Legion began accepting Spanish-speaking applicants, many of whom were previously inadmissible, Pugliese told BI.

Some made it but were mistreated by their officers, he said.

The new Bolivar Battalion, for example, was formed from fighters from Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Colombia and is led by a Venezuelan anti-government fighter.

Many are former professional soldiers from Colombia, battle-hardened fighters against drug cartels and rebel groups in their home country.

Experienced noncommissioned officers can earn four times as much as they would at home or even more, the Associated Press reported.

Latin Americans “have different motivations than typical Western soldiers,” Larson told BI.

“They’re there for the money.”