Russian President Vladimir Putin still casts the conflict as a proxy battle with the West that Moscow claims is propping up Kyiv. But Western governments have been at pains to maintain a plausible distance from the war, no matter their robust support for Ukraine’s defense. Leaked documents last year confirmed that some NATO countries — including the United States, Britain and France — had deployed small numbers of special forces and military advisers to Ukraine in unspecified roles probably related to logistical support work and training. The United States’ CIA has funded and partially equipped a sprawling network of spy bases across Ukraine that aid Kyiv’s efforts to track Russian troop movements and target the Kremlin’s prized military assets.
Whatever these footprints, the deeper reality of the war in Ukraine is that there already are plenty of foreign fighters on both sides. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, thousands of sympathetic volunteers — largely from the West and post-Soviet states — enlisted under Kyiv’s banner. The international legion that emerged has been deployed across the front lines and in some of the war’s most grinding battles. It comprises a motley cast of ideological die-hards, grizzled warriors and mercenaries for hire. Some have earned social media fame for their impassioned dispatches from the war zone. At least 50 American citizens — the majority former U.S. military veterans — have been killed in Ukraine.
Though official numbers are a bit murky, some 20,000 foreigners from over 50 nationalities make up Ukraine’s international legion, according to Ukrainian officials. Last week, amid mounting concerns over troop shortages, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree allowing foreign nationals legally residing in the country to enter the National Guard, the military branch of the Ukraine’s interior minister. He also proposed legislation last month making it easier for foreign nationals defending Ukraine to receive citizenship. Other volunteer brigades fighting for Ukraine include detachments of Belarusian fighters opposed to the Putin-backed dictatorship in Minsk, anti-Kremlin Russians and ethnically Turkic nationals from Russia, and post-Soviet states like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/28/foreign-troops-ukraine-theyre-already-there/