What Ever Happened to the Volunteers?

[Note: Some names have been changed for privacy and security concerns.]

There was a time in the summer of 2022, in Kyiv and Lviv, when Ukrainians heard the booming discord of anglophone voices reverberating through the streets, louder and more prevalent than their own native tongues.

In Lviv, the haunting melody of violin and accordion competed for space with the bellowing cries of volunteer soldiers, whose booming, irreverent voices reverberated off the marble turn-of-the-century architecture. The people of Lviv had become used to the constant stream of drunk foreign men, but even they could not hide their shock at the sheer depravity sometimes on display. 

I first came to Ukraine in July 2022, coming to Lviv from Krakow. 

One hour off the bus and I got swept up into a sea of insanity drinking with volunteer soldiers. There’s nothing like it in the world. After a few Slava Ukraini shots a person will never be the same. The number of violations of cultural norms and social decency that I witnessed living among these wild-eyed-post-traumatic scoundrels is far too many to count.

One American volunteer told me at the time, “I’m here because I’m a pirate.”

And he looked like a pirate. 

Being in Lviv that summer felt like a special moment, like being on the pulse of what was happening. The city was full of life. The streets were filled with people all the way up until curfew at 11 p.m. The mood was jovial and celebratory, a typical summer vivaciousness that everywhere else in the world takes for granted. Their very presence on the street was political, as if defiantly overcoming Russian aggression. 

Right before curfew, young Ukrainians would gather in a public square, playing music and chanting, “Putin Huilo!”

The imperial power of an American or British passport in Ukraine is undeniable. People are eager to talk to Americans or buy them a drink, just because they’re American. Back home these volunteer soldiers were criminals or forgotten veterans. In Ukraine they were heroes. Their unkempt bravado was both charismatic and inherently problematic.

However, as the days turned into months, the sound of Yankee voices became less and less. 

What happened to the chaos and passion of the volunteers who flooded Ukrainian streets that summer?

“The thing of it is, yea, that a lot of these guys got their little moment of glory, and now they’re ready to go home,” Rod, a British former volunteer now fighting with the International Legion, told me. “The money ran out, yea? People abused it. Goodwill dried up. People either signed contracts and went east, or they left.”

According to a report by Vice News, the number of volunteers “lining up” to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine has steadily dropped since the heyday of 2022.

One anonymous source in the Ukrainian military even told Vice, “The romantics [who] were present in February [and] March are gone.”

Despite this, the number of soldiers in Ukraine’s International Legion has actually increased—though the Ukrainian Military has not released an official number as of Oct. 11, 2023—with people coming in from more than 55 countries since the start of the war.

According to Rod, part of this is due to the creation of new battalions by the Legion, as well as more people arriving from Latin America.

But the idea that the romantics are gone really cuts to the heart of the situation. In the summer of 2022, most of the volunteer soldiers in Ukraine had yet to sign formal contracts with the military, many of them being financially supported by a wave of donations from Western countries. They were wild back then because they were free back then. They were on the pulse of this special moment in time, and they knew it. The Ukrainians granted them many liberties that would later be taken away once they were officially put on the payroll.

“Once I started getting a paycheck, yea? Things changed. All of a sudden they didn’t treat me the same,” Rod said.

Many of the liberties granted to volunteers also became increasingly problematic.

Cullen, an American former volunteer who returned to the U.S. in 2023, told me there were a lot of people with questionable qualifications and abilities filtering through the volunteer system, and that he used to act as kind of a leader/facilitator to get the right people into the right situations, “so that everyone [got] their needs met.”

These undisciplined volunteers often never actually went to the front, and spent most of their time drinking in Lviv or Kyiv. In some of the worst situations, people with little training or experience often blustered their way to the front, where they got themselves or other people killed or injured. On top of that, people sitting comfortably in Kyiv spent their time fundraising to support their decadent lifestyles, a habit of a few that proved costly to the many.

Despite their vast range of offenses, the fact that even a source in the Ukrainian military would refer to these ragtag renegades as romantics is interesting in and of itself. Why do we find these would-be outlaws so romantic? What is it about their unchecked liberties and wild demeanors that stir such passion in our collective hearts and minds?

“I mean we trained a lot of the police here at the time, so what were they gonna do?” Lars, an American former volunteer now back in the States, said. “I used to actually keep a key to the police cuffs they use in my pocket, for emergencies. Haven’t had to use it though.”

International goodwill began to fade for the volunteer community. Corruption by some Private Military Corporations and the rise of more official channels of funding for the Ukrainian military led to the decline of the chaotic and free-wheeling volunteer era. Little by little the money ran dry, and little by little volunteer soldiers began to leave Ukraine. The volunteers who stayed were often absorbed by the Ukrainian military. More and more cities like Lviv and Kyiv found themselves emptied of the wild foreigners who had roamed their streets for months, as those people drifted east to various fronts, especially Bakhmut.

“Funding is the biggest issue,” Cullen said. “My group stayed out of the military and worked to start an NGO, but just couldn’t drum up enough funding to survive. I worked for free for eight months and finally had to leave to get my finances together.”

Lars expressed similar sentiments: “Money is the issue for me, or I would still be over there. Well that, and I had to come back and take care of the fam.”

Ferguson, a Swedish former volunteer, now a contracted trainer in the 24th Mech Brigade, thinks that many people may have entertained aspirations that were alienated from the material realities on the ground in Ukraine.

“I guess guys see how business is run here, or they run out of cash,” Ferguson said. “I think many miss being here.”

The theme of the “good old days” was present in the words of many soldiers interviewed.

“Yea, I miss them days,” Rod said. “I miss the people I was with, and the job I was doing. Things seemed to be a lot simpler.”

“I’m jealous of the people still over there, man. I wish I was there,” Lars said.

“Yes, I miss the sh*t out of it. Instructing in combat tactics is my passion,” Cullen explained. 

Mykola Ponych, a Ukrainian filmmaker, spent most of 2022 on the front line. There he encountered many volunteer soldiers. He still has a high opinion of them.  

“I know some from South America and Eastern Europe. They are extremely motivated,” he said.

Andre Potanin, a painter and longtime Kyiv resident, spent a lot of time with foreigners, including volunteer soldiers. He and his friends drank many times with soldiers at Chornyy Kapitan, a bar in Old Kyiv. One such occasion even ended in a fight with a Ukrainian soldier.

“My friends are a little crazy,” Andre admitted. “Things are different now.”

Andre thinks that the apparent decline of foreigners in Ukraine might be a misrepresentation.

He told me: “I don’t think there are less foreigners in Ukraine. On the contrary, there are more! But now these are people who travel to Ukraine on business.”

People who travel to Ukraine for business are probably going to have different behaviors than rowdy posses of foreign soldiers. This different feeling can be felt walking the streets of Kyiv, which are calmer than in 2022. There are also noticeably fewer patrons at some of the major bars in Kyiv, such as Bochka Pub, Chornyy Kapitan and Buena Vista.

“I noticed that Bochka is almost empty most nights,” Rod said.

Part of the reason for the exodus of volunteers is that the passion of the war being new is over.

“I think Ukraine is not as much in focus as it was at the beginning of this sh*t,” said Ilya, a Ukrainian software engineer living in Kyiv. “About the volunteers: I thank them for everything that they are doing.”

The summer of 2022 was an absolutely unique moment in the history of Ukraine and the world. It was a calm in the storm, an interlude before the fall, a magical melody, performed on a stage that no longer exists. There was just so much pent up energy in the Ukrainian people released that summer. 

“It was just a fun time to be alive,” Lars said.

In Kyiv, so many people who faced death at the hands of Russian soldiers just a few months before came out to celebrate life in the face of aggression. Nightly chants and protests on Khreschatyk filled the air. No one knew what the future held, but even under the shadow of war, there was a vibrant optimism that the people and their freedoms would win, in a cosmic victory over the forces of oppression and corruption. Something had been set loose inside of the hearts of Ukrainians that would not allow itself to be put back in a cage.

When Ukraine displayed the ruins of Russian war machines on Khreschatyk for Independence Day, crowds of people filled the street. Despite warnings not to congregate due to the threat of Russian strikes, Ukrainian music filled the air and little children climbed atop the rusty vehicles posing for photos by proud parents. 

“We really experienced much more freedom after the war than we did before,” Ilya told me. “I am not the only one who feels this.”

According to him, despite the Russian onslaught and advent of martial law, the issues of freedom for everyday Ukrainians and the battle against corruption took on more urgency as President Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian leaders framed the war as a battle for freedom against tyranny. Aspirations for EU membership were also a liberalizing factor.

Andre also agrees that Ukraine is much more liberal now than before the war.

“You can see it on the streets,” he explained. “We want freedom!”

Both men worry that the forces within the Ukrainian oligarchy and the military will try to turn back the clock once the eyes of the world fade from Ukraine.

What was the summer of 2022? A moment of cosmic justice for the people of Ukraine, or the last gasp of a “Free Europe” before the fall? How will we remember it? Will history look upon us kindly? 

It was a manic-magical time. It was hard to be there without getting swept up by it.

And there, caught up in the ecstasy of the moment, were the volunteer soldiers: pirates and poets, felons and fools, vikings and the vanguard. There were people and opportunities everywhere you looked, and there was never a dry moment. Ah, the summer of 2022! Looking back now at the chaos and fevered dreams of those days, I can’t help but miss it.

As Cullen once told me back in that summer of 2022, “You’re crazy if you come to Ukraine, but you’re even crazier if you want to leave.”