The telephone number of the military affairs department of the Ukrainian embassy in The Hague is open on Monday morning. “Every ten to fifteen minutes someone calls who wants to fight in Ukraine,” says diplomat Yuriy Lysenko, who answers at the political affairs department. The callers are responding to Ukrainian President Zelensky’s call for foreign volunteers to come and help in the fight against the Russian army. With an improvised foreign legion he wants to convert the statements of support of outsiders into concrete manpower.
On Monday morning, more than two hundred Dutch people had already registered, diplomat Lysenko says, including people with Ukrainian or, for example, a Polish background. He has no idea what contribution they should make. “We are still waiting for instructions from Kiev. For now, we’re keeping the phone calls short and recording their details.”
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Unlike the Dutch who joined Islamic State at the time, the volunteers who want to fight in Ukraine do not encounter objections from The Hague. It is “in principle not prohibited” to enlist in a foreign armed forces, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense. It only becomes a problem if the Dutch join a warring party with which the Netherlands is in conflict, such as IS.
The mobilization of civilians who can assist the Ukrainian army has taken off since Thursday when the invasion began. In recent days, images of civilians suddenly holding a rifle or collecting bottles together to make Molotov cocktails have emerged from Kiev and other cities. At least 22,000 Ukrainians returned to their homeland from the Polish border to help.
There is a considerable chance that it will not stop at voluntary mobilization. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 are no longer allowed to leave the country. However, they are not yet forced to join the fight.
Territorial Defense Force
The new Foreign Legion is to become an international branch of the Territorial Defense Force, the civilian organization of volunteers who assist the regular army. Each of the 24 regions (oblasts) has its own ‘battalion’; in addition, there is a battalion for Kiev. Their job is primarily to take over the simpler tasks of the military, such as infrastructure surveillance and law enforcement. But since the invasion, they have also joined the battle.
No one knows whether the foreign volunteers will arrive in Ukraine on time. On Sunday, the American technology company Maxar . published satellite images showing a Russian military convoy of hundreds of vehicles some 40 miles north of Kiev. It is unknown whether this should be part of a plan to besiege the city. Residents were allowed to take to the streets again on Monday morning after a lockdown of a day and a half, although explosions were heard earlier that day.
According to Russia’s Interfax, the Russians have taken the smaller southeastern towns of Berdyansk and Enerhodar, including the area around a nuclear power plant. There was also heavy fighting for the city of Mariupol. Monday night promised Ukraine Russian soldiers amnesty and five million rubles (41,000 euros) if they surrendered.
The country’s second city, Kharkov, came under heavy fire on Monday. Although the Russian army denies it, civilian targets are also being shelled there, including residential areas, schools and hospitals. It also seems cluster munitions to be deployed. on video footage smoking flats can be seen. At least 11 people were killed on Monday, according to local authorities. Presumably there are more deaths, because not all damage was immediately inventoried.
Rocket Launchers
The volunteers of the Territorial Defense Force are fighting in Kharkov, to show images from, for example, news channel France24. It can be seen how they fired on Russian vehicles with rocket launchers in the center of the city on Sunday, and with result: the Russians turned around. “We have this city under control,” the volunteers said proudly.
The Territorial Defense Force was established in 2014 in the Donbas to fight against the pro-Russian separatists. The leadership consists of professional soldiers and veterans. Since January of this year it has been a official part of the armed forces, in which – in the words of Defense Minister Oleksi Reznikov – “anyone who can hold a gun” can participate to learn how to defend his or her city or region. Many have been training on weekends for years before the moment has arrived. In Kiev, even so many people would report that there are not enough weapons for them.
In addition to these well-organized volunteers, spontaneous groups have been formed all over the country in recent days, for example to respond to the call from the Ministry of Defense to make Molotov cocktails. They would also have been used in Kharkiv.
However brave and effective the deployment of civilians pelting the enemy from their bedroom windows may be, there are also risks involved. It blurs the distinction between warring parties and civilians, warns Dylan Lee Lehrke of the American think tank Janes in The Washington Poso† A possible consequence is that Russian soldiers will start firing more specifically at civilians.
Also read: Ukrainians prepare for a Russian invasion with wooden guns: ‘Putin wants to destroy our country’
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 1, 2022
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