Ukraine’s parliament is voting on legislation that could see them integrate foreign fighters into their armed forces. The move is aimed at combatting pro-Russian rebels and may be a sign that the current ceasefire is expected to fail.
Following the abandonment of an EU trade agreement in November 2013, many Ukrainians took to the streets to voice their displeasure with pro-Russian government policies. They were joined by some foreign nationalities — primarily Azerbaijanis, Belarussians, Georgians, and Chechens. When protests lead to the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine put forward a new government that leaned toward the EU. The security situation within the country unraveled, with Russia annexing Crimea following clashes between pro-Kremlin and pro-Kiev protestors there. The two countries are now officially in the midst of a ceasefire but it’s widely expected not to hold and reports of daily fighting are ongoing.
If the bill passes, it will allow non-Ukrainians to serve as privates or junior officers in the Ukrainian military — an indication that the already fragile ceasefire won’t hold up.
With foreign fighters already serving on both sides of the conflict, the latest bill is also seen by experts as an attempt to legitimize their presence and potentially reign them in. Some foreign fighters and mercenaries also fear that they may be sacrificed later on and accused of acts of terrorism. This bill is aimed to allay those concerns.
“I don’t think the proposed law (it is still only through the first of three readings in the Rada) will have any big impact,” Paul Stronski, a senior associate at Carnegie Endowment’s Russia and Eurasia Program, told ThinkProgress by email.
“Foreign volunteers are fighting there in any case,” said Lilia Shevtsova, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings’ Center on the United States and Europe. “Ukrainians now try to adopt some legal structure of their activity.”
Stronski added:
There are already Chechens and citizens of other countries fighting on Ukraine’s behalf. In fact, there are Chechen’s on both sides of this conflict — some fighting for the Russian-backed separatists and others for Ukraine. So, I don’t see this as leading to an influx of new foreign fighters into Ukraine.
While countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan have tried to act as mediators in the Ukraine crisis, Chechens have split their allegiances and entered the conflict on both sides. The federal republic has fought brutal wars in the past against Russia with the country divided between those who support Chechnya’s allegiance to Moscow and those who want to reclaim independence. This has led many in the region to have strong feelings about the Ukraine crisis and driven some factions to participate in the hostilities there.
“Although Chechnya and Ukraine are dissimilar in almost every other way — including religion, culture, and geography — they have two aspects in common: a history of Russian domination and a yearning for a separate identity,” journalist Nicholas Wallers wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last month.
In the pro-Kiev camp is the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion, named for Chechnya’s first president. According to a report in the Kyiv Post, “ethnic Chechens account for only about 17 percent [of the Dudayev Battalion], while about 70 percent are ethnic Ukrainians. Most of the Chechens are from European countries, including Denmark and Scandinavian nations, but there are also those who come from Chechnya and fought in the First Chechen War (1994–1996) and Second Chechen War (1999–2000).”
Azeris, Tatars, Ingush, and Georgians are also represented in the battalion, according to the Kyiv Post. Adam Osmayev, the recently appointed commander of the Dudayev Battalion, told Foreign Affairs that he “hopes to lure scores of Chechens away from joining extremist groups in Syria and Iraq and instead bring them to Ukraine with the opportunity to fight their old foe directly.”
On the other side, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is a loyal ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’s gone as far to say he would resign to volunteer to fight in Ukraine and is believed to have sent soldiers to support pro-Russian separatists.
According to the BBC, other nationalities involved in clashes include a couple Spaniards (pro-Russian rebels), about 20 Frenchmen (on both sides), Serbs (primarily rebels but some mercenaries on Ukrainian side), a Swedish white-nationalist (Ukraine), among others. Total figures could be as high as 300 on each side.
This bill though is aimed at the pro-Ukrainian fighters who want a guarantee against future persecution as terrorists.
“My sense, however, is that this bill is probably part of the effort to pull the independent/semi-independent volunteer militias that have been fighting on Ukraine’s behalf into the formal Ukrainian defense and security structures,” said Stronski, the Carnegie expert. “There has been pressure on the government to integrate and gain greater operational control over them. Since foreign fighters exist in many of these militias, the Ukrainian government probably need the law to regularize them.”
Little is expected to change should the bill pass as foreign fighters are already entrenched on both sides of the conflict.
“I doubt it will change anything and do not see Russia’s nervous neighbors sanctioning fighters officially or unofficially going to Ukraine,” said Stronski. “But, Russia might use it for propaganda purposes.”