Exhausting the reserves

Ukrainian fighters are courageous, resourceful, and resilient, but they are not invincible, nor are their potential replacements infinite. Moreover, the “coalition of the willing” supporting Ukraine has no plans to send troops until after the war ends, and even then they may not be ready to fight a “kinetic war” if (or when) Russia violates an eventual ceasefire or peace deal.

Manpower is among Russia’s greatest advantages in its war against Ukraine. Though Ukraine’s daily casualties are lower, its population is one-quarter the size of Russia’s. Even after losing an estimated 250,000 soldiers, with total casualties probably exceeding 950,000, Russia is nowhere near “running out”.

Whether Russians are lining up to fight is irrelevant. From carrying out massive conscription drives and offering financial benefits such as subsidised mortgages to recruiting prisoners and importing North Korean soldiers, Vladimir Putin will stop at nothing to feed his war machine. Given his apparent willingness to treat soldiers as expendable and shrug off any number of losses, one must assume that Russia will be able to sustain a grinding war of attrition for as long as it takes to deplete Ukraine’s ranks.

That is why supporting Ukraine now requires finding ways to put foreign boots on the ground there. This does not necessarily mean sending in NATO troops — a step that member states, fearing escalation and expansion of the war, surely would not approve. Rather, the coalition supporting Ukraine must lend its political, legal, and financial support to recruit volunteers from their countries, or from third countries, to join the Ukrainian International Legion.

This is not a novel idea. The international brigades of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which were immortalised in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, André Malraux’s Man’s Hope, and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, are perhaps the best-known example of foreign soldiers fighting to save a country’s democracy. Thousands of foreign volunteers also helped to defend Finland against Stalin’s massive and brutal Soviet Army in 1939, a war of aggression closely resembling the invasion of Ukraine.

Perhaps Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had this in mind when, two days after Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, he called on “all foreigners who want to join the resistance” to go to Ukraine. Hotlines were opened, and websites were created. Over the course of three years, about 17,000 volunteers reportedly showed up with some enlisting in the International Legion, and others being integrated into various units.

Foreign volunteers have made invaluable contributions to the war effort. In Kyiv’s Maidan Square, one finds the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes among the thousands of yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flags dedicated to fallen soldiers. But their numbers have fallen short of need. As the journalist Colin Freeman pointed out in last week’s edition of The Spectator, far more foreign fighters — 35,000 — joined the Islamic State, despite knowing that they would face ostracism and even prosecution if they later returned home. Ukraine’s cause, by contrast, enjoys considerable global support.

According to Freeman, many Ukrainians believe that the International Legion could have been 100,000-strong by now, had it been better run, perhaps with help from Ukraine’s allies. With Ukraine running out of soldiers, now is the time to find out. 

The first step is compensation. Foreign soldiers currently earn the same salary as Ukrainians, from about €425 per month to €2,500 for frontline duty. While that might be enough to attract volunteers from some countries — many Colombians, the largest group of foreign volunteers fighting in Ukraine, report having material motives — it is much less than what, say, an American or British combat veteran would make as a security guard at home.

The “coalition of the willing” must therefore dedicate funds to increasing compensation for foreign volunteers, in much the same way it is purchasing materiel from the US to send to Ukraine’s military. From practiced gamers, who might be trained to operate unmanned vehicles, to former American or British military servicemen, the range of potential recruits is vast. If the offer is appealing enough, perhaps even highly skilled F-16 pilots or other such specialists would be willing to bring their expertise to bear in defense of Ukraine.

Offering more attractive compensation to “legionnaires” — who would be fighting under Ukraine’s flag — is not the same as hiring private military firms, as US President Donald Trump has suggested, though he reportedly floated the possibility of employing such contractors as part of a “long-term peace plan” rather than to bolster Ukraine’s war effort now. If private US military contractors were deployed to fight in Ukraine, Russia might declare it to be an act of aggression, tantamount to sending NATO troops.

To be sure, given Russia’s blatant, prolonged, and relentless violations of international law, its protests do not warrant much consideration. Nonetheless, if the “coalition of the willing” really wants to help Ukraine with its manpower shortages, its best bet is to increase the ranks of the International Legion. The legionnaires could be trained outside Ukraine, learn basic language skills from Ukrainian refugees, and be deployed in linguistically uniform units.

Even a vastly expanded Ukrainian International Legion may not be a game changer on the ground. But it would boost the morale of Ukrainian forces, and it would show Putin that neither the world nor time is on his side.