Editor’s Note: This is the third part of the Kyiv Independent’s investigation into the International Legion – a military formation created for foreign fighters defending Ukraine. Published in August 2022, the first part revealed leadership misconduct in the military-intelligence-led wing of the Legion. The second part, published in November 2022, showed that the reported issues also applied to the other part of the Legion, overseen by the Armed Forces. This third installment revisits the previously reported issues, responding to interest from our readers.
While reporting about the issues within the Legion, the Kyiv Independent takes precautions as to not undermine the personnel security in the light of Russia’s war against Ukraine: We leave out certain details that aren’t key to the narrative, such as locations, and don’t publish the names of the commanders that soldiers accuse of wrongdoing if these commanders don’t have public profiles already.
We also protect the identities of our sources, who fear retribution for speaking up.
Top findings:
- After investigations by Ukrainian law enforcement and global public attention following Kyiv Independent and other media reports in 2022-2023, the Legion seems to have not implemented any substantial changes
- Instead of suspending or firing commanders subject to soldiers' complaints, the leadership of the Legion either kept them at their posts or transferred them to other units
- Commanders in the military intelligence (HUR) arm of the Legion continue to abuse subordinates in the ways similar to what the Kyiv Independent reported in 2022
- Legionnaires again report poor control over equipment and arms in certain divisions
- Legion keeps around soldiers with controversial and criminal backgrounds, including an infamous ex-member of a Polish organized crime group, Piotr Kapuscinski
- Drug and alcohol abuse is frequent. One such party in a safe house culminated in the murder of a soldier
- Wounded legionnaires accuse Ukrainian officers of forcing them to break their contracts, which deprives them of financial compensation for injuries
- Soldiers claim to struggle to receive injury payments as well as combat payments due to Legion’s failure to provide them with the required paperwork
- Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) broke their silence and commented on the allegations about the part of the Legion that they oversee. They praised the Legion as an effective unit and said all alleged cases of misconduct are investigated. The second branch overseeing foreign fighters, the Ground Forces, didn’t respond to the Kyiv Independent’s questions.
The International Legion was destined to be a PR success for Ukraine.
Launched in the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it attracted foreigners who volunteered to defend Ukraine, highlighting that the fight against Russian aggression was a global cause.
But the effort has backfired. The Legion was soon marred in scandals, with legionnaires reporting misconduct and abuse. The fact that there hasn’t been any public reaction from Ukrainian authorities in charge of it didn’t help.
Several foreign fighters the Kyiv Independent spoke to unanimously agreed: The conventional Ukrainian army is a better place to serve than the two units that make up the International Legion.
“I don't want to work with foreigners. I love Ukrainians. It's foreigners that I have problems with,” said a former soldier who had served both in the Legion and in a Ukrainian unit.
“The main brigades of HUR itself and SSO SBU, the Ukrainian portion where there are no foreigners, are excellent,” another soldier said, referring to the Military Intelligence and Special Operations Forces of the Security Service. The military intelligence, known under its Ukrainian acronym HUR (sometimes spelled GUR), runs one of the two units that comprise the International Legion.
“So I thought, maybe it'll be the same, okay, maybe not the same, but it can't be that bad. Then it ended up being pretty bad (in the Legion),” the soldier added.
“Right now, the best thing for foreigners to do is find a unit with Ukrainians,” another ex-legionnaire said. Signing up with a Ukrainian unit is much easier for foreigners now than it was at the start of the full-scale war. Yet, it can still be a challenge for those who don’t know the local language and lack local connections.
In 2022, the Kyiv Independent was among the first to report about leadership misconduct in the Legion. Back then, there had been no official reaction. Ever since then, the readers have kept asking the publication whether there was any accountability for the misconduct mentioned in the reports. In the past months, foreign fighters, current and former, have also started actively asking the Kyiv Independent to bring their problems to light again.
“It just struck me why there was no reaction,” a foreign sniper and ex-legionnaire said.
While working on this new story, the Kyiv Independent reviewed the files and paperwork foreign fighters shared with us, including rapports, emails, screenshots of messages, videos, and interviewed 20 current and former legionnaires. We also spoke to their family members and friends, volunteers, and lawyers helping foreign fighters. We found that many of the problems we shed light on back in 2022 appear to still be there: poor control over light weapons, commanders physically assaulting and threatening subordinates, and alcohol abuse ongoing in certain units.
In addition, the interviewees complained about further problems not reported before: Legion staff allegedly failing to provide soldiers with the documents necessary for combat and injury payments, the mistreatment of wounded fighters, and poor discipline.
We do not publish our sources' names to protect them from persecution by Russian groups that specifically target foreign fighters defending Ukraine and retribution in Ukraine for speaking up.
Long silence
Both the HUR and Ground Forces arms of the Legion don’t seem to have fully resolved the problems the Kyiv Independent highlighted in its 2022 reports.
However, two years later, one of the two bodies – HUR – has finally addressed the issues at the Legion in comments to the Kyiv Independent, breaking its silence about the matter.
HUR told the Kyiv Independent that “unfortunately, during active hostilities, there may be violations of military discipline and the rights or social guarantees of servicemen” and said it condemns this and prioritizes taking measures to react and conducts internal checks.
When the Kyiv Independent’s November 2022 article was published, a HUR press officer told the Kyiv Independent the agency would conduct an internal check regarding the reported issues with the part of the International Legion it oversees. A month later, when asked about the results, the press officer refused to share the details, citing security risks. According to the legionnaires’ assessment, this self-investigation did not lead to any change.
While reluctantly communicating with the media, the Legion makes an effort to promote itself.
In June, HUR premiered a film praising its foreign unit. The Legion also places ads on social media to invite new recruits.
According to the servicemen of the Ground Forces part of the Legion, this unit hasn't substantially improved either, but has gotten bigger instead, reportedly adding two battalions. Ground Forces didn’t respond to the Kyiv Independent’s request for comment. It refused to comment about the issues in the Legion in 2022 as well.
“Now, in addition to two dysfunctioning battalions, first and third, we also have a second battalion, which was formed early in spring (of 2023) … and there's also the fourth battalion,” said a former staff clerk.
Despite not publicly reacting to the reported problems inside the subordinated part of the Legion, Ground Forces’s leadership was well aware of them, according to two sources close to the Legion’s administration. Moreover, they tried to get the issues fixed.
In February 2023, the Ground Forces created a new Department of Coordination of Military Service of Foreigners dedicated to protecting soldiers' rights across its Legion's four battalions. A former State Security Service (SBU) officer, Ihor Baidukov, was appointed as its head. However, according to legionnaires, no substantial improvements in repatriations, injury compensations, or salary payments, which are inconsistent, have been achieved. When contacted by the Kyiv Independent, Baidukov refused to discuss his work.
Some problems the Legion faced back in 2022 have been somewhat resolved, according to Rachel Jamison, director of Protect a Volunteer, an organization that helps foreign fighters with equipment, supplies, and medical care.
“I have seen big improvements in 2.5 years, mainly in relation to receiving contracts. In 2022 it was common to meet people who never received one and that is rare now,” she said.
One law enforcement agency that paid attention to the Kyiv Independent’s 2022 reporting on the International Legion was the State Security Service, or SBU.
“In June (2023), the SBU came to the Ground Forces trying to figure out who gave the report to you,” said a source close to the administration of the Legion. When asked to confirm it, the SBU said it can't disclose any information about the actions that are a part of a pre-trial investigation.
The report in question is a 78-page document detailing the problems in the Legion. It was compiled by some of its members back in 2022. It had already been seen by members of the parliament, representatives of the President’s Office, and Ground Forces before the Kyiv Independent obtained it and cited it in its stories about the Legion, yet didn’t publish it for security reasons.
The SBU tried to identify the Kyiv Independent’s sources as part of its probe into the publication. The agency investigated the media outlet for obstructing Ukraine’s Armed Forces and other military formations, a criminal offense punishable by five to 15 years in prison. According to the Kyiv Independent’s sources with access to the information about the case, it was closed in February 2024.
The Kyiv Independent
The case was active at about the same time when other Ukrainian media outlets also found themselves at the center of attention from authorities, including the SBU. An investigative outlet Bihus.Info was surveilled by the SBU using hidden cameras installed in hotel rooms in December 2023. The SBU reacted by firing or relocating to the front lines those responsible for the surveillance, and publicly denouncing pressure on journalists. Later, an investigative journalist from a different outlet was served a draft notice as retribution for his report about a top SBU official.
Poland reacts, seeks aid to probe Legion commander
Outside Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent’s coverage of the Legion caught the eye of Polish law enforcement.
In November 2022, Poland’s Prosecutor General’s Office approached Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations, quoting the Kyiv Independent’s Legion reports and seeking international legal assistance to investigate a Polish wanted national: a former gangster Piotr Kapuscinski, whom the Kyiv Independent found serving as a de-facto senior commander in the HUR part of the International Legion. The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) didn’t respond to the Kyiv Independent’s questions on whether they provided the requested help to their Polish colleagues. Polish prosecutors did not answer whether the SBI had assisted them.
In Poland, Kapuscinski was charged with 70 different crimes, including illegal firearms possession, kidnapping, beating, human trafficking, and financially benefiting from prostitution. These investigations are ongoing, according to Prokuratura Krajowa, or the State Prosecutor’s Office.
For some of the offenses, Kapuscinski was convicted in 2014 of three years and ten months in prison. He didn’t serve this sentence as he fled to Ukraine, evading punishment.
“Piotr K. (Kapuscinski) is wanted by letters of the indictment issued by the District Court in Kielce and by the District Court for the Capital City of Warsaw. In addition, the District Court in Kielce issued a European Arrest Warrant for the suspect,” the Polish Prosecutor’s Office said.
Poland tried to extradite Kapuscinski at least once in 2017. Ukraine agreed but wanted to try him first. Kapuscinski was standing in a Ukrainian court accused of illegal weapons possession when he joined the HUR part of the International Legion soon after the all-out war had broken out in 2022, after which the court suspended his case.
In the July 2024 comment to the Kyiv Independent, HUR part of the Legion, where Kapuscinski serves, said: “Anyone who is sufficiently reliable as a soldier and a person, loyal to Ukraine and willing to do hard, risky work to protect Ukraine can become a member of the International Legion. Mistakes made in the past cannot be default and absolute reasons for denying the right to defend Ukraine. Such a refusal would be possible if a particularly serious crime was in question.”
Kapuscinski declined the Kyiv Independent’s request for comment.
In June 2022, law enforcement opened a probe into legionnaires’ allegations of Kapuscinski’s abuse of power and theft. A year and a half later, in December 2023, the State Bureau of Investigations closed the case, citing the absence of a criminal offense.
Accused commanders stay put
The commanders who legionnaires accused of abuse of power and mismanagement in the Kyiv Independent’s 2022 reports haven’t faced consequences.
Among them is Kapuscinski, who manages to simultaneously be on the Polish police wanted list and in the leadership of the HUR part of the Legion.
“Kapuscinski is still in charge of one of the forward bases and is still moving around as a free man, so whatever was attempted against him obviously didn't work,” a former legionnaire said in spring 2024.
“He's untouchable,” corroborated another ex-HUR Legion soldier.
Another high-level officer subject to soldiers’ complaints is Major Taras Vashuk, a Ukrainian and an acting commander of the HUR’s foreign unit. Like Kapuscinski, he faced no music, though some subordinates’ accusations against him were repeated in new testimonies: disrespect and expulsion from the Legion for those who dared to argue with him.
Ground Forces’s officers whom legionnaires accused of wrongdoings in 2022 also stay untouched: the chief sergeant of the first battalion, Mykola (Nikolay) Bakaliuk, retained his post, just like the commander of the third battalion, Bohdan M. (Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Independent doesn’t identify this and some other commanders by full names for security reasons. Only commanders who have public profiles are identified in the story.)
Around May 2023, both of the Legion’s arms, the HUR and Ground Forces units, fell under audit, which lasted until July of the same year. Sources in the Legion said that the audit was conducted by “commanders from Kyiv.”
The only known result of the checks in the army-run part of the Legion was the transfer of Anatoliy H., who served as chief of staff, from the first to the third battalion. The audit allegedly found him failing to keep the paperwork in order.
Speaking to the Kyiv Independent, Anatoliy H. confirmed he was demoted and transferred for “improper performance of duties of a military unit commander.” However, he denies any violations, saying it was unjust persecution caused by internal politics. He couldn’t elaborate on what exactly he was allegedly persecuted for.
“Obviously, the incompetence didn't get solved because one person was removed,” a former staff clerk said. “We just moved the problem,” they added.
It’s not the first time the Ground Forces has transferred an officer from the leadership of the first battalion to the smaller third battalion instead of firing them. In May 2022, the same happened to Bohdan, then commander of the first battalion.
“Third is where rejects from the first battalion go,” a legionnaire said.
The audit in the HUR-led wing of the Legion is not known to have yielded results, according to the servicemen with whom the Kyiv Independent spoke.
Legionnaires said they were warned about the upcoming audit and ordered to log the weapons they had on them into the armory room, which was something they weren’t used to.
"We were told ahead of time that it was going to happen, that we should be careful, and the risks, you know, of us having the off-the-books things like different bullets, anything in our cars, and that we should clean our cars and make sure we don't carry anything on us that we are not supposed to carry," one soldier said.
Weapon chaos
Servicemen of the intelligence-run part of the Legion claim to often keep their weapons away from the armory room, where they belong when they aren’t on the battlefield.
“Guys would even have weapons, grenade launchers, all sorts of explosives in their rooms when they should have been in the armory,” one soldier said.
Some of the weapons are off the books completely, and have never been to the armory. This includes presents, custom-made explosives, or war booty, soldiers said.
In one case, soldiers recall getting a few Russian AKs in an assault. Upon returning from the front line, a team leader, Adam, decided against logging them in the armory room.
In another case, a foreign fighter received a sniper rifle as a present. It was never placed on record. When this soldier quit and went home, he left this weapon with the team leader, Adam, who allegedly decided not to turn it in. “We might need a spare,” a legionnaire recalled his team leader saying in justification. Even if he decided to turn it in, doing so with a weapon that is unaccounted for would be problematic due to army bureaucracy.
The Kyiv Independent approached Adam for comment. He didn’t directly respond to questions but called them “hearsay” by “unqualified” former teammates.
Some team leaders apply the same strategy to the weapons of fallen soldiers: “They rarely go back to the armory.”
As legionnaires explained, the reasoning behind keeping weapons off the books is that “if we lose weapons in the field, we can easily grab an extra” without additional paperwork and wait times. This approach, though, could cause the uncontrolled flow of unrecorded weapons.
Responding to it, the Legion said they take weapons control seriously.
“We carry out regular and frequent inspections of weapons, and in case of damage or destruction of weapons (including in combat), a mandatory internal investigation is conducted. All weapons and equipment are accounted for, and we do not confirm the statements about alleged weapons theft, as this is not true,” the HUR-led wing of the Legion said in a written statement to the Kyiv Independent.
Legionnaires say they do not regard the armory rooms highly for two main reasons: they don’t want their weapons signed off to someone else and are afraid of them going missing. In late 2022, the Kyiv Independent reported light weapons, small arms, and military equipment had been misappropriated, citing legionnaires and reports they wrote about the matter. Some of these accusations were attributed to Kapuscinski. Particular soldiers’ written testimonies detailed how he allegedly extorted money from subordinates for access to weapons in 2022.
A similar situation might have happened a year later: one HUR soldier told the Kyiv Independent that Kapuscinski tried to sell him the war booty, an offer he claims to have refused.
When contacted by the Kyiv Independent, Kapuscinski refused to talk.
‘Wild West’
Several foreign soldiers the Kyiv Independent interviewed referred to the intelligence-overseen division of the Legion as “Wild West,” an expression describing the western United States during its frontier period, which was associated with lawlessness.
“A gangster-like” environment, soldiers said, is another reason for the widespread reluctance to log in weapons in the armory room:
“There's so much of this, you know, drama, conflict, between people that they want to keep their weapons on them all the time because they are afraid of confrontation, and they keep them for protection essentially, and it's so crazy that it's evolved into that,” said a former member of the HUR-run part of the Legion.
At times, arms were raised at comrades in an argument.
In 2022, the Kyiv Independent, citing legionnaires, reported that commanders of the HUR arm of the Legion pointed weapons at their subordinates.
This appears to continue happening. In early October 2023, a team was on its way back from trenches on the zero line. One soldier was dragging behind, and his teammate slowed down to wait “out of solidarity and companionship so nothing happens to him,” according to a legionnaire witness.
The leader of the team, Adam, returned and “placed a gun to his head.”
“He said: ‘Follow my order or I will shoot you and leave you on the side of the road and say the Russians shot you,’ but still I went back under heavy fire to get him,” the soldier victim to the assault said, corroborated by a witness. Adam denied fellow soldiers’ allegations against him but didn’t respond to further questions.
Another commander, Jason P., used his helmet as a weapon against a subordinate during an argument.
“He just lost it. He took his helmet and beat me in the face with it,” said a soldier who fell victim to the violence. “I had a fracture in my nose, and I lost some pieces of the bottom row of my teeth.”
The victim and a witness filed reports to their commanders about the assault, which the Kyiv Independent saw. According to the injured fighter, the Legion paid for his treatment yet didn’t punish the attacker. The Kyiv Independent couldn’t reach Jason P. for comment. In its written statement provided to the Kyiv Independent, HUR didn’t respond to the question about this assault.
Illegal driving
Another example of lawlessness is illegal driving. The Kyiv Independent knows of two separate instances when Legion soldiers who served under HUR were behind the wheel without a license when on duty. Both cases were lethal, one for the driver and another one for civilians.
In November 2023, a legionnaire was driving his teammates on a mission near the Kharkiv frontline. Just a couple of weeks before he had sustained a serious injury — shrapnel and a bullet in his hand — but was quickly discharged from the hospital and put back into service.
On top of still not fully recovering, he couldn’t drive. He had his license stripped over a decade before and had not driven a car since.
The road conditions were bad, the vehicle went off the road and slammed into a tree. The soldier died, while his teammates remained in one piece.
In early February 2023, another foreign fighter who didn’t have a driving license was tasked to drive an armored vehicle in Donetsk Oblast. A civilian car drove into the crossroads and appeared in the way of the vehicle. The soldier tried to stop the vehicle but couldn’t. He unintentionally killed three people.
He told the Kyiv Independent that he performed first aid, but there was nothing he could do to save these people. He claims to have called the police and reported the accident. He is now under investigation.
According to this soldier, his commanders knew he didn’t have a driving license, but they still made him drive.
“I said: ‘I don’t have a driving license, I don’t want to go do this job’,” he recalled saying.
“This is an order. You don’t go, you’re a deserter,” his commander responded, according to the soldier. He eventually followed the order.
“Once you spend a set amount of time in the unit, you realize that there really isn't any control (of discipline), and unless you have a moral compass that guides you, you will start doing things that are not acceptable in any way,” another legionnaire said.
The HUR-led wing of the Legion said it “requires impeccable service from its military personnel. However, the issue of violation of internal order arises in any sufficiently large unit, and we are no exception.”
In one case, drug and alcohol use, which is something servicemen are not allowed to do while on duty, led to a murder.
Murder in Kramatorsk
It took place in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk Oblast, in June 2023. After having completed trench assault training, a team called 50/50 decided to celebrate. The team was divided into two smaller groups that lived in two separate safe houses. Among themselves, they referred to one as “the calm house” and the other as “the party house.” That night, “the party house” was living up to its name, hosting a party.
“They got some alcohol and set up some games like beer pong to just, like, hang out together,” said a member of the team.
Two British citizens, team leader Steven H., and Jordan Сhadwick, with the call sign Bulldog, had an argument.
The next morning, Chadwick didn’t show up for the training. When asked about his whereabouts, Steven H. said he was off the team due to aggressive behavior the night before.
Сhadwick’s body was soon found in a reservoir in the Kramatorsk suburb with his hands tied behind his back, according to the police report seen by the Kyiv Independent.
According to the 50/50 team members, Steven H. confessed to driving Сhadwick there and leaving him behind. The Kyiv Independent couldn’t reach Steven H. for comment.
When the team members searched the safe house after the incident, they claimed to have found open bottles of alcohol and ketamine.
According to the legionnaires, Steven H. had been held at the base of the military intelligence part of the legion for some time before disappearing. The Kramatorsk district police told the Kyiv Independent they couldn’t comment on Steven’s role in the murder of Chadwick at this time, since it could hurt the ongoing investigation. The police, however, said that they haven’t detained or charged anyone with Сhadwick’s murder yet.
In a comment to the Kyiv Independent, the Legion of HUR said: “All emergencies entail appropriate actions – from internal audits to police investigations.“
“None of the cases you mentioned concerning the International Legion of the Military Intelligence of Ukraine was an exception. They all received a proper legal assessment,“ the statement goes on.
In September, three months after the murder of Jordan Сhadwick in Kramatorsk, another British citizen and foreign fighter Daniel Burke, who formerly was part of the independent team of foreigners, Wolverines, and later started his own, the Dark Angels, was found dead near a shooting range not far from Zaporihzhzia.
The Greater Manchester Police, on March 28, said Ukraine’s law enforcement had named Daniel’s fellow soldier Abdelfetah Nourine the main suspect in his murder. Soon after the incident, Abdelfetah, an Australian-Algerian dual national, went into hiding.
Poor vetting process
Legionnaires believe it is people with troubled pasts who bring in a criminal culture.
They call the poor vetting process, in particular superficial background checks, the reason people like Kapuscinski, a convicted criminal, made it to the HUR Legion’s ranks.
Some foreigners lied about their military experience. While there is no requirement to have military experience to join the Legion, at least one recruit was wrongfully put in a leadership position when the vetting missed his problematic background.
Christopher Griffin, a British citizen, had been the leader of a combat team in the HUR part of the Legion until his subordinates discovered that he had no relevant experience. Soldiers’ research led them to articles about Griffin’s conviction as a fraudster who pled guilty to falsely stating he had 11 years of military experience to boost his security business in Britain back in 2015. Soon after this discovery, Griffin was removed from the leadership position. The Kyiv Independent couldn’t reach Griffin for a comment using his Ukrainian number.
“It’s a word-of-mouth,” a soldier who used to be on Griffin’s team said, describing the vetting process.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought in very different people, from runaway criminals, hoping to lay low in a war-torn country, to heroes-to-be in search of fame. A few people with extreme views arrived, too, as well as many war veterans struggling to adjust to civilian life in their home countries.
“They're just addicted to war. They can't live normally,” a former legionnaire said.
“You're getting guys who have been told by the American military for whatever reason you don't work for us anymore. There's a reason why they're not in the American special forces,” a veteran close to the Legion said.
Jamison from Protect a Volunteer echoes it.
“Some of the foreign fighters have troubling motives: They are here solely because they want to kill or are escaping a bad past,” she said.
“At the same time, some are an absolute asset with the right skills and experience,” she added.
Many foreigners came to Ukraine with sincere intentions to help defend the country from Russian aggression.
“I saw solidarity with the Ukrainians,” said a soldier who arrived in Ukraine in the early days of the all-out war.
“I mean, it was just seeking, like, to do the right thing.”
Yet some qualified and once highly motivated fighters quit after facing problematic issues in the Legion, including what they saw as improper use of their skills.
“Good soldiers get frustrated they are not being properly utilized. They wait long periods for contracts or to transfer. They don’t get missions that utilize their skill sets or are on teams with members with questionable skills,” Jamison said.
“This makes good volunteers leave.”
Oleh Tymoshenko
Injury bonuses struggle
Foreign fighters say many of them struggle to get their injury bonuses of Hr 100,000 ($2,555) paid. Some even face unlawful contract terminations while on recovery, which consequently complicates claiming compensation.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, which makes the payments, didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment. Neither did the Ground Forces.
The HUR-led part of the Legion was the only one to comment:
“Documents that certify combat injury or trauma and can be the basis for appropriate payments are issued in the unit in the same manner as in any other unit of the defense forces,” it said in a written statement provided to the Kyiv Independent.
Soldiers with whom the Kyiv Independent spoke found it complicated to obtain certain documents from their units, such as a mission report listing the circumstances of the injury, which is necessary for receiving a bonus. Moreover, even getting medical leave proves problematic for wounded foreign fighters — on paper, they are often “on vacation” while, in fact, they are in hospital beds.
One of the infamous cases of the Legion failing to pay an injury bonus to a foreign fighter is the one of Eric Jorgenson, a former legionnaire serving with the Ground Forces.
The American marine sustained a serious injury in the aftermath of the Kharkiv Offensive in early November 2022. He was taking cover when a Russian shell landed right next to him.
“If I wanted to, I could have reached out and touched the crater it created. It left my right leg hanging on just by the flesh at the bottom,” Jorgenson said.
Ukrainian doctors did “an impressive job” getting him back on his feet, he said, but eventually, he lost the limb. For his service, President Volodymyr Zelensky gave him a medal. He still hasn’t received his injury compensation, though.
Jorgenson has been waiting for the payment for over a year now. He is still figuring out the full amount he is owed, between back pay and injury assistance.
“I tried for over a year to communicate remotely with different administrators, legal and financial personnel of the Legion. It never came,” Jorgenson told the Kyiv Independent.
Volunteers crowdfunded money for his prosthesis and in late spring of 2024, he decided to travel back to Ukraine to try and speed up the process of getting the injury bonus he is due.
“(I was) led to believe it could be done in weeks to a month or so – that was nearly three months ago. Meanwhile, I’ve got a job, a girlfriend, and a cat back home (in the U.S.) waiting for me, and I can’t tell them at all when I’ll be home because, with all the complexity and bureaucracy, I don’t know. I’m still being told I have to be patient,” he said.
A similar situation happened to a foreign fighter with the call sign Wizard who also served in the Ground Forces wing of the Legion. Just like Jorgenson, he has been waiting for injury compensation since he was injured in November 2022.
He sustained an injury when his group was returning from a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines. They had reached Ukraine-controlled territory when the vehicle in front of them hit a mine. Out of three Ukrainians who were in it, two were killed, and one injured, according to Wizard.
Wizard was on an APC that was driving behind. He and his comrade, another foreigner, were heavily injured.
Wizard got multiple shrapnel wounds, but Ukrainian doctors managed to get almost all of it out. But his sight was irrevocably damaged: he lost vision in his right eye.
He didn’t receive the injury compensation, and paid 7,000 euros for the eye treatment that he later received in a German hospital. He had to borrow the money.
Another problem is that Legion officers allegedly forcefully terminate contracts with injured servicemen. A recent rapport concerning the Ground Forces wing of the Legion, obtained by the Kyiv Independent, reads:
“I’ve seen multiple cases where wounded soldiers in hospitals who lose contact with their unit, are called ‘AWOL'” — absent without leave or simply, deserter — “and have their contracts broken. The soldiers discover this when they stop receiving pay.”
This problem appears to exist across foreign sections of both the Ground Forces and Military Intelligence. In November 2022, the Kyiv Independent already reported that commanders of the HUR arm of the Legion kicked out wounded soldiers from the Legion while they were in the hospitals.
The delays or absence of injury bonuses can put soldiers in financial trouble during recovery.
Igor Kossov
One foreign fighter who was injured while serving with the Ground Forces’ part of the Legion told the Kyiv Independent that following the incident he had to sell all his gear to “be able to live.”
“I ruptured my intestines. I knew straight away, and I told them it's impossible to carry all this kit,” he said, adding that commanders tried to claim he got injured elsewhere before finally admitting the fact and allowing him to see a doctor.
He was away from the front line, recovering from two surgeries on his hernia, an injury he received carrying a lot of gear on his shoulders in Bakhmut in August of 2023, and couldn’t pay his bills.
He hasn’t even applied for the injury bonus of Hr 100,000 ($2,555), saying he didn’t know it existed at the time.
If he had been paid the bonus, he said, he wouldn’t have had to take measures as radical as selling his equipment, especially since his next deployment was upcoming, for which he needed gear. Fortunately, he said, friends and family lent him some money to replace what he had sold.
This is the case for many foreign fighters in Ukraine: Because of the language barrier and the Ukrainian officers' reluctance to inform them, they are often unaware of the payments they are due.
Payments held up
Other types of compensation, like salaries, combat bonuses, and death benefits are also sometimes paid inconsistently or delayed, according to legionnaires.
Combat bonuses often don’t get paid in the Legion of Ground Forces because team leaders and officers fail to file mission reports on time or at all, a former Legion staff clerk told the Kyiv Independent.
According to multiple legionnaires the Kyiv Independent spoke to, one of the most popular reasons salaries are held up is that soldiers don’t get to sign contracts for months and yet, according to them, are required to carry out military tasks. Consequently, their military IDs are delayed, as well as payments.
The HUR-led part of the Legion said that candidates who haven’t yet signed a contract can’t participate in fighting, but can be in the area of hostilities as civilians.
“Participation in hostilities by civilians (candidates who have not signed a contract) is prohibited, and any civilians may travel to the area of hostilities at their own discretion within the limits established by the law,” the response reads.
“Candidates for military service in the International Legion of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine who have not yet signed a contract in accordance with the established procedure cannot receive financial support due to the lack of appropriate legal relations with the state.”
Not only do the foreign soldiers face difficulties in getting paid sometimes, but fighters also experience extra service-related expenses.
According to several legionnaires, they had to pay for their accommodation and petrol from their pockets when deployed to the front line.
“All the expenses must fall on the Defense Ministry, not the soldiers. And thus, such commanders’ demands (to pay rent) are totally unlawful,” said Yulia Zasoba, a lawyer with Legal 100, an NGO that provides free advice to servicemen in Ukraine.
Families of the soldiers killed defending Ukraine rarely receive the death bonus of Hr 15,000,000 ($380,000) from the state. The procedure is designed in a way that discourages them from applying — they must travel all the way to war-torn Ukraine and physically go through the highly bureaucratic process.
They must file a pile of documents — translated into Ukrainian and certified by a Ukrainian consulate — with the recruitment center through which the soldier was drafted. They also need to open accounts in one of the four given Ukrainian state-owned banks.
Yet, coming to Ukraine and doing all that is not popular with the families of fallen foreign soldiers. Richard Harris is among the very few who are going through with it.
His son, Thomas, an Afghanistan war veteran, came to Ukraine in August 2023, joined the HUR part of the Legion, and almost immediately started going on missions. During one of them, he saved his injured teammate’s life by stopping his heavy bleeding. In November 2023, Thomas died in a car accident close to the front line.
Harris arrived in Kyiv from Washington the following month to ensure the remains of his son made it home safely. Ukrainian authorities paid for repatriation, and the Legion organized a funeral, which was a “great ceremony.“ What the Legion didn’t do was explain how to claim the death bonus — there was no one to guide him through the complex bureaucratic procedure. Harris had to investigate it on his own, asking around.
“I figured out most of the process myself actually, and then obviously when I went to Kyiv — through the U.S. embassy,” he said.
In Kyiv, Harris learned that he needed a Ukrainian bank account to receive the death bonus payment. He opened one in a well-known international bank. When he was back in Washington, he found out that the bank he chose didn’t qualify. Now, he plans to travel to Ukraine again.
Harris said he doesn’t want the money for himself; he wants to donate it. One option he is considering is financing the memorial for the foreign defenders of Ukraine.
Andrea Januta
