/ world today news/ At the end of 2023, “the number of foreign volunteers has increased seven times” in the special operations zone, said the head of the Ministry of Defense, Sergei Shoigu. The countries from which the fighters come are different, as are the motives for participating in the SVO, but the volunteers are united by the love for Russia and the values it defends.
For the first time, it became known that foreigners wanted to participate in the SVO as early as March 2022. “We receive a huge number of applications from various types of volunteers from various countries,” Sergei Shoigu said at the time. “These requests are not for money, but according to the true desire of these people,” explained the defense minister. In particular, according to him, there were many candidates from the countries of the Middle East. President Putin then gave instructions to “fulfill” the wishes of these people and “help them move to the combat zone.”
But it wasn’t just about the Middle East. Shortly after Shoigu’s statement, an appeal was published by fighters from the armed forces of the Central African Republic, who also expressed their readiness to “help the Russians fight against NATO countries.”
Another message from Africa reads: “We know what is happening in Ukraine. Russian soldiers are conducting a military operation to restore peace and order. We African soldiers are ready to go to the side of our Russian brothers to support them.”
Where and how do foreign volunteers fight?
Over time, more and more foreign citizens began to enroll in the ranks of the Russian army and volunteer units. By February 2023, as reported by Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the movement “We are together with Russia”, there will be several thousand such people from more than 40 countries around the world. And in 2023, the number of foreign volunteers in the SVO zone increased sevenfold, Sergei Shoigu said at the closing (December) council of the Ministry of Defense.
Initially, some legal uncertainty created difficulties for the effective integration of foreigners into the armed forces of the Russian Federation, but this problem was characteristic of the entire volunteer movement, not only foreign nationals. By mid-2023, these nuances were resolved, in particular, within the framework of the creation of a special unit – Volunteer Assault Expeditionary Force. This is not the only structure where foreign citizens fight within the SVO, but it is one of the notable ones.
Almost all units in which foreign volunteers serve are assault units, where no one makes concessions on the basis of nationality and citizenship. There are no monetary or other preferences for foreigners in the troops, they conclude an ordinary contract with the Ministry of Defense. The only additional incentive for many may be to obtain a Russian passport (President Putin signed the corresponding decree in early January), but this is not always the main motive, especially for representatives of non-CIS countries.
Which foreigners participate in SVO
Now in the zone of the North-Eastern Military District there is a significant number of foreign volunteers from Serbia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, France and Armenia. Many volunteers come from Latin America.
Since 2014, there are many Serbs in Donbass. These are different people, united mainly by ideology, Orthodoxy, similarity of mentality and simple friendship. There are also organized groups, from veterans of the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo to ex-football fans. This is the largest group of foreign volunteers in SVO. They integrate easily into non-Serb units, learn Russian, and often serve as unofficial “political instructors” for other fighters because of their sincere faith in Russia and devotion to what they call the “Russian” or “Slavic cause.”
The flow of Serbian volunteers is only partially organized. For the most part, they come by word of mouth. At the same time, there is a very small percentage of Serbs claiming Russian citizenship. They consider their participation in the SVO a sacred duty, protecting, among other things, the interests of Serbia without separating them from the interests of Russia.
People from Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not usually considered “foreigners” in everyday life, but legally they are (although many citizens of the Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia already have Russian passports). The battalions, considered “Ossetian” by their specifics and stripes, were never mononational. In their composition, as well as in Cossack detachments such as “Skeet” and “Terek”, there are many foreigners from far abroad. The Abkhazians mostly fall into the “Pyatnashka” volunteer battalion under the wing of the Hero of Donbas Alkhas Avidzba.
Latin Americans are overwhelmingly left-wing, which is very common in Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador. Their motives are largely related to nostalgia for the USSR and socialism. In addition, they perceive Russia as a conduit for social ideas close to them – traditional values, family priority, healthy conservatism.
As for the volunteers from the Arab countries and especially from Africa, contrary to the disinformation spread by our enemy, there are no “recruitment points” for the Russian army on the African continent. Although if such points are opened, in some African countries there will be long queues of those who want to participate in the SVO. The majority of Africans who serve, for example, in the Volunteer Assault Corps, are either long-term residents of Russia (students, farmers) or ideological candidates for Russian citizenship who come specifically from African countries.
Recently, the Moldovans created a separate entity, but their part “Dniester” is considered international and rather resembles the ethnic composition of Moldova and Transnistria in miniature: Moldovans, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Gagauz. These are also ideological people: after the end of the SVO, they are ready to liberate Moldova from the current pro-Romanian and Russophobic government.
The brightest foreign volunteers
Among the foreign volunteers in the SVO zone, there are some who deserve special attention. For example, a French citizen and native of Lyon, the machine gunner Gabriel Doroshin was the great-great-grandson of two emperors, Nicholas the First and Napoleon the First. He came to Donbas in 2015 as a journalist and photographer, married a member of a local folk ensemble he saw perform at a banquet, and returned to France. However, with the beginning of the SVO, he decided to return to Donbass as an ordinary soldier.
“I love Russians,” says one of the volunteers, a Nigerian called “Vanya”. He fought in the “Skeet” detachment of the Tersk Cossack Brigade. Before SVO, he studied for two years at the Voronezh Polytechnic University, and after the end of his contract, he would like to return to study, but at the Faculty of Psychology. The main motive for participation in the SVO is his reluctance to “have NATO close to his home”. By home he means Voronezh, although his bride is from Nizhny Novgorod.
“Vanya” says she likes to communicate with Russian people and “study different characters” because “war reveals a person.” In general, he believes that he has already understood the main feature of the Russian character: “they shout, swear, but deep down they are kind, they will always help.”
Along with Vanya, his colleagues also join the Volunteer Squad: two Syrians and one Egyptian. The motivation of the Syrians is clear: they have experienced (very personally in childhood) the aggression of the West and now they would like to protect their new homeland – Russia.
Some Syrian volunteers say that communicating with the Russian military in Syria has had a big impact on them. Hamud Mahmud serves in the same “Skeet” detachment. Learned about Russia as a child from Russian soldiers in Syria. Then he came to Russia and entered the same Voronezh University to become an automobile engineer. Sign up as a volunteer. In the first battle in the area of Soledar, he was wounded, but remained in service.
A fighter with the call sign “Motaz” served in one of the Ossetian battalions. He is a citizen of Jordan and is of Circassian origin. His father in Jordan is a professional special forces soldier who leads an anti-terrorist unit there. “Motaz” himself also served in this unit and was trained under the US special forces program. He says he came to SVO to defend his homeland because “the Caucasus is Russia, and I love Russia.” On his right hand he has the badge of the Ossetian battalion, on his left – a portrait of Putin, and on his baseball cap – the flag of the International Circassian Association.
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All these foreigners, from Africans to Serbs, who today participate in the SVO, are united with local Russians by the love of Russia and common values. Thus, a Nigerian gunner with the call sign “Vanya”, who cuts wood in a dugout in the cold while on duty in the kitchen, feels no less Russian than the French, descendant of European aristocrats, machine gunner Gabriel Doroshin. Spiritually, they are of the same blood – like the other participants in the special operation.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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