This looks like a rather desperate and last-ditch attempt to reverse the inevitable. Recognizing that manpower is a problem the Ukrainian armed forces are trying to recruit more foreigners. There is a logic to this; but it will be a case of too little, too late, to make any significant difference.
I am struck more by the media coverage in this article. The recruitment drive is an initiative of the infamous Azov battalion. This is the battalion which even Western media pre-2022 conceded had a problem with neo-Nazism. The US Congress even declined to fund it for this reason. Since the start of the “full-scale invasion”, there has been a different tune: “Azov, a volunteer brigade whose decade-old nationalist origins have made it a target of Russian propaganda”. It is not that Azov has a problem with neo-Nazism, but the problem is “Russian propaganda”. And. maybe there was a problem, but that was a “decade” ago. “However, Azov has changed over a continuous decade of fighting”.
The author misses the more significant point about Azov. In 2019 Zelensky made a genuine effort to resolve the Donbas conflict. A solution involving a referendum was proposed. Russia was on board. But:
But the most passionate opposition to Zelensky’s initiative came from hardline Ukrainian nationalists. Thousands of protesters gathered on Kyiv’s Maidan Square under the slogan ‘No capitulation!’55 More menacingly, several Ukrainian nationalist militias, including the Azov Battalion that was then fighting in the Luhansk region of Donbas, refused to accept the agreement. Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the far-right National Corps and first commander of the Azov Battalion, accused Zelensky of ‘disrespecting’ veterans and of acting on behalf of the Kremlin. Zelensky met Biletsky and other militia leaders in an attempt to convince them to surrender their unregistered weapons and accept the peace accord. They refused, and the referendum plan collapsed – and with it any realistic chance of peace in Donbas. [1]
This is a matter of historical record.
So, now Azov battalion is recruiting foreign fighters. The article by the Guardian’s Defence Editor with its exact description of the proposed recruitment drive, quote from a battalion commander about how Ukraine is fighting to defend Europe, and even a reminder that “Travelling to Ukraine to fight in its armed forces is not illegal, unless you are a member of the UK armed forces, though it is not encouraged.”, looks something like an advert. I can’t help wondering about the role of MI6 in this.
Notes
- Matthews, Owen. Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine (p. 149). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.