Volunteers from Western Europe fighting with Separatist forces in Ukraine.

[another_liberal]

The civil war in Ukraine has drawn volunteers from a number of nations. Those with right-wing and fascistic sympathies have joined Kiev's militia battalions, while those opposed to such ideologies and sympathetic to the Separatist cause have made their way to join the self-defense units defending Donetsk and Lugansk.

French fighter Guillaume.


French fighter Nikola.


Commander of the French team in Ukraine Victor Lenfa.


Milutin Malisic, a member of a Serbian Chetnik paramilitary group.


‘United Continent’: European volunteers fighting Kiev troops in Eastern Ukraine

European volunteers are streaming into Ukraine to join the fighting on both sides. While Kiev’s forces are beefed up with mercenaries from private military companies, Europeans have also come to defend the rebel Donbass region of their own free will. One of the latest reinforcements of anti-Kiev troops in Eastern Ukraine are four French ex-serviceman who have come to fight this war, thousands of kilometers from home. “It’s our war. It’s everybody’s war, it’s every European’s war,” Guillaume, a French fighter in Ukraine defending the Donbass region, told RT’s Paula Slier.

Another volunteer, 25-year-old Nikola, used to be a professional soldier with the elite French mountain troops for five years. Now he’s putting his skills to good use in Ukraine. Alongside a contingent of other foreign volunteers, he’s training anti-Kiev forces in urban guerilla warfare. “These are people’s militias, these are not mercenaries or professional soldiers, so they need instruction,” Nikola told RT. “They really have the motivation, whereas the Kiev army, which is a kind of puppet of NATO, they don’t have any motivation whatsoever,” Nikola said. “We have seen them before. They are very much unmotivated and they do not really know why they are fighting, and against whom they are fighting, so that is our main strength.”

The French volunteer explained that the presence of European volunteers among Ukraine’s rebels carrying out what they call “a military operation for protecting civilians” in the country’s east is symbolic. “For many of these people from the west, it's their first time to come and defend what is considered by western governments a bad cause, or the bad guys’ cause. So it’s very important to show that people from the west are distinct from their governments and they are ready to come and fight and risk their lives to defend another world,” Nikola said.

And more and more overseas fighters are signing up and joining the anti-Kiev troops. RT’s Paula Slier found out that volunteers are coming to the Donetsk frontline not just from France, but also from Spain, Poland, Israel and the United Kingdom. Aleksey Mozgovoy, the commander of ‘Prizrak’ (Ghost) brigade from the Lugansk Region said in an interview to the MK.ru news outlet that in his 1,000-strong battalion there are fighters from Bulgaria, Slovakia and Germany.

(snip)

Read more, and view videos, at: http://rt.com/news/183864-ukraine-european-volunteers-fighting/

[socialist_n_TN]

1. The anti-RT group should be along at any time now.....

Except I've seen this on other websites, including Ukrainian ones. This actually reminds me of historical accounts of the Spanish civil war against Franco and his fascists. Let's hope the outcome is different.

[another_liberal]

4. Anti-fascist fighters in Spain didn't have Russia so close . . .

The Nazi-lovers may not have things so easy this time around!

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Are we in bizarro world, now?

I don't see how people fighting on the side of the fascist Putin can reasonably be considered anti-fascist.

[socialist_n_TN]

3. They aren't fighting on the side of Putin........

They're fighting AGAINST the Kiev putsch WHICH ACTUALLY HAS FASCISTS IN THE GOVERNMENT. And they're fighting against the fascists in the volunteer "National Guard" battalions invading the east and south of Ukraine.

[another_liberal]

5. President Putin may be many things, however, he is no "fascist" . . .

That contention is nothing but neo-con historicism gone hopelessly wild.

(sigh)