After more than a month of war, the International Defense Legion of Ukraine – created to receive foreigners who want to fight Russian attacks – already has more volunteers than it needs. People come from all over the world and hundreds have been turned away.
The explanation was given to CNN Portugal by a Defense Ministry spokesman, who added that even Russians and Belarusians had offered to fight for Ukraine.
Colonel Anton Myronovych admits that it seems “something perhaps comical, but we have requests from those countries that we treat as enemies, as we have volunteers from Russia and Belarus.”
So far, however, as a matter of caution, no Russians or Belarusians have been accepted into the Foreign Legion, contrary to what has already happened with some Portuguese, which the Ukrainian Defense spokesman cannot quantify, despite admitting that several Portuguese have also been refused.
In fact, there are so many volunteers that it is necessary to make a rigorous selection. A mandatory requirement is that they have real combat experience, it is not enough to know how to use weapons, but it is also necessary to know the real motives of those who seek to fight in a bloody war.
“You have to realize that when you are accepted, you have to fight side by side with the Ukrainian military and be part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, complying with all the rules followed by the Ukrainians”.
“It’s not an adventure or fun, but a real war in which they will be fighting for freedom”, continues the representative of the International Defense Legion of Ukraine, admitting that many refusals happen because the volunteers “do not understand what we are looking for”.
“Some of the volunteers see this opportunity to join the International Legion as an adventure… and some even think they can make some money out of it, but that’s not our goal,” says Anton Myronovych.
Even with hundreds of names refused, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense says that “at the moment we have more volunteers than we need”.
Source: CNN Brasil
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