“If we got captured, we’d probably be executed”: Confessions of three foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine

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“It's always scary and nerve-wracking to realize you’re the target of the enemy”

Nate Vance, United States, cousin of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance

I arrived in Ukraine in 2022. It was really kind of random. I didn't even know that much about the area. I just saw the news, and the news was kind of upsetting to me. I think the thing that triggered me was seeing thousands of women with their kids at a train station with whatever belongings they could carry in a plastic bag and then trying to calculate how bad something would have to be to drive a mother out of their home in the middle of the night.

It was a friend of mine at work who could see that it was weighing on me. So he said, “Man, why don't you buy a ticket?” And I think my exact words were, “Fuck it, why not?” Which became something that I would say a lot. That's not the best strategy to have in life, especially when you're going to a war zone. But I thought that if I wasn't being useful, or if it was just too dangerous, then I would turn around and leave. When I made my plans to go, I didn't know anybody in Ukraine.

In Poland I met a few British infantrymen — I recognized them because they had British infantry rucksacks on. So I kind of linked up with them. There were 3 or 4 of them, I can't remember now. That group of us were the only human beings, at least on foot, entering Ukraine through that border crossing at all. And then when we crossed over to the Ukrainian side, we just saw a massive line of Ukrainians, mostly older women and women with kids waiting in line to leave the country. And they were all looking at us like, “Who are these crazy weirdos?”

We'd spoken to those British guys and I heard some things about the Foreign Legion. And this is in no way to insult the Legion, but I think having managed businesses, I was looking at the Foreign Legion and thinking that this is going to be an absolute nightmare of a logistical problem — to take a bunch of foreigners of different languages and skill levels under new leadership, and then go into a fight with the Russian army, which was prepared for all of this.

There was a Foreign Legion recruiter at the border, so we talked to him and didn't get a good impression from that. So then we headed on into Lviv and ended up linking up with some humanitarian group for a little while. That's how I got started there.

I think I got all of my knowledge of Soviet countries from Rocky IV. I knew that Ukraine used to be part of the Soviet Union. So I expected, like, you know, guys with square hats and the old Soviet buildings and stuff like that. And I got there and it turned out this is pretty much like America with a different language. When you hear conservative Americans talk about conservative values, Ukrainians remind me of that. They're very family oriented. I think a lot of Ukrainians would be more on the conservative side of American politics.

I don't know if people really remember this, but one of the biggest needs for the Ukrainian army was first aid kits. Nobody had tourniquets. Nobody had decompression needles. Civilian organizations bought those things in the U.S. Here, you can go into a military supplies store and buy a CAT-5 tourniquet. So people were just sending boxes of these things, and we were packing those into usable IFAKs [individual first aid kits] and delivering those to Kyiv.

Slowly the things we were doing transitioned from helping move supplies to helping train. And in the process of that training I met soldiers from one of the militia groups. They asked me if I wanted to go to Donbas with them and help there, and I agreed and went with them. So I did one little trip to the front and then went home and was like, “All right, screw it, I'm going back for six months.” And then that six months turned into a long stay.

Early in the war Ukraine had a lot of militia groups. It was a pretty chaotic period for the Ukrainian military: basically random people picking up guns and going to fight the Russians. These units weren’t part of the army officially, but worked alongside the military, helping them. So my group was with the Da Vinci Wolves battalion. Eventually that battalion became an official Ukrainian army unit, I think in 2023.

Units like ours don't get access to larger scale weapons like artillery. If you're an official battalion, you have your own artillery. We would consider that artillery organic. That means that your battalion commander can direct what it fires at and what it is used for. If you're working adjacent to a unit, you have access to their artillery if they choose to use it for what you want. Without that organic kind of fire support built into the system, you obviously don't want to take the hyper aggressive roles like assaulting positions where you know you're going to need artillery. So what we would relegate ourselves to is finding targets.

A lot of that was done with drones. Some of it was with our eyeballs. You'd go out and sit on observation posts and things like that. And sometimes you would see enemies. Sometimes they would see you, and then you would be under mortars and artillery fire. Usually we were responding to the needs of that larger unit that we were working alongside at that time. We contacted them and said, “Look, we have this target. Do you want to strike it?”

The most scary and dangerous place where I have been is probably the Bakhmut area. But it doesn't really matter. If you're in the sights of the enemy and they're shooting at you, that's scary. It doesn't matter if there's one enemy or a thousand of them. Once you realize you’re the target of the enemy, it's always scary and nerve wracking.

I was a machine gunner in the Marines. That's kind of the role that I fell into there as well. Typically what I was doing is that fire support role, though there were times when I would do some other stuff.

One time, we were going to push the Russians out of a position and then get relieved by a larger force. There were eight of us. We ran across about 1000 meters of open field right while we were getting shelled. It really reminded me of the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan. I was like, “I don't know how we lived through that,” but I’m glad we did. And we did push the Russians out. And then we got in a trench and we're like “Okay, when's that larger unit going to show up?”

They never did. We were in that trench all day. The Russians knew exactly where we were. It wasn't even a trench. It was like just a wash out from water. But there were trees around it, so at least we had some top cover from drones. If we didn't, we'd probably be dead. But the Russians were slinging mortars and artillery at us all day long.

And then finally it just got to a point when we had to leave. We couldn’t stay there overnight because the Russians were going to come back in force. And we were not really prepared or equipped for a night fight with the Russian army and artillery. If their guys showed up and they found out exactly where we were, they would send their artillery at a specific grid coordinate, and we were just going to die. So at some point, we had to make that decision to cross that same thousand meters of open field again under artillery fire. Unfortunately, two guys did lose their lives in that situation.

There are certain constants that exist in combat, regardless of the environment — like how to move. But having constant “eyes” in the sky over you is freaky. Things like “Orlan” drones — you have no idea if they're really over you. You have to move from cover to cover.

You see people saying drones are going to completely alter the way we fight wars forever. I don't see it that way. I think it's more of an evolutionary change than a revolutionary change.

People think that war is about screaming, climbing over a ledge and running into machine gun fire, but 90% of it is like — where do I take a shit? Where are we going to cook? Where are you going to do your laundry? There's entire sections of military training manuals, like how to build a latrine, what to do about hygiene and stuff like that. I was not getting into gunfights on a daily basis. I wasn't taking crazy unnecessary risks. I always tried to calculate them. I spend half my free time trying to figure out where to find a fucking washing machine, or a bucket to to wash my clothes in and then where to hang them up.

Especially if it's wintertime, you really can't hang them up outside. So, think about a bunch of guys packed into a little tiny space and doing their laundry. And where do you hang your clothes to dry? Those little logistical things take up a huge portion of your time. And I think people don't realize that.

Another moment — the food. Mainly we would get MRIs. But we’d also get this kind of like bacon — it’s not salo; there’s meat in it. But it's kind of cured in a different way. That and eggs was pretty much 90% of my diet. And then soup and sour cream on everything. Because you're not allowed to not put sour cream on food when you're in Ukraine. Which is good. I still do it. I kind of brought that habit back.

I didn't like that bacon and eggs was what I would eat most of the time. But in the land of FPV drones, taking a shit suddenly unlocks a new kind of terror. When you go into combat, everybody knows you can potentially lose your life. That's just a risk that you learn to deal with, right? But if you have to shit in the middle of a fight — which is a real thing — getting hit with an FPV drone mid evacuation and then knowing that it's going to be all over Telegram is one of the most terrifying things ever. So I made sure I ate a very low fiber diet. It was just protein. Yeah, that did affect my diet choices.

“If we got captured here, probably we would get executed”

Adam Ennis, Scotland

I arrived to Ukraine at the end of February 2022. I decided to come here when the full invasion had only begun, after 3 or 4 days. I just felt in my heart that I had to go. I never told my family I was going. My mum and dad were in Thailand and I left three days before they were due to come back. And when my parents arrived back to Scotland, they asked my friends where their son was. And my friends never wanted to tell them. So for two weeks my parents didn't even know that I’m in Ukraine.

When I actually arrived, I never had a direct contact for the Foreign Legion. Actually, I had no details of where I was to go or or who I was to speak to. Luckily enough, I managed to become friends with a policeman who let me stay at his house the first night I was in the country. And in the morning he made the appropriate phone calls for me and dropped me off at my first base in Yavoriv.

I was in Yavoriv for maybe a week or so. There wasn't too much training, but you could tell who could handle a weapon and who couldn't. I was never in the military back home. I knew how to fire a weapon and handle a weapon, but that was about the extent of it. In Yavoriv we got split into teams depending on our skill sets. When they believed that a team was ready to deploy, they moved it to a special place on the base called Tent City. Once you got moved there, you knew you were going to be deployed within the next 48 hours. I was lucky enough that I got put in with a team of Georgians, who were brilliant. So I deployed to Kyiv with my team of Georgian brothers. A lot of them are still in this country today, fighting.

I've never been in a war before, so I didn’t know what we were going to face. We were deployed to Kyiv in the beginning of March, when, I believe, Kyiv was 75% surrounded. And the whole world was saying that we were going to lose within one week. Fifteen kilometers away from us there was that forty-kilometer-long convoy of Russian armor that was three lanes deep. Obviously I had all these thoughts going through my head. If we get captured here, then probably we're going to get executed because we're going to be classed as foreign mercenaries. So there were all sorts of thoughts of how I can get out of this city if it gets surrounded.

My first day out was in Irpin. I almost got killed two times that day. Both directly by artillery. Everything was raining on top of us, and I remember going back to base after that mission and thinking to myself that I had one week maximum to live if every day was going to be like what we faced that first day.

In 2023 I was lucky enough to become commander of a unit in the 59th Brigade. I was a commander of 55 men, and I had 14 Colombians under me. They were really good, brave men, the ultimate professionals at all times. They were highly trained. A lot of them had spent many years fighting narco terrorists in the jungles in Colombia.

It was more difficult later on with Western boys — the Americans, British, Swedish, and so forth. I found a lot of the time that the Western fighters wanted to be treated better than everyone else, which was obviously not fair. I enjoyed it when I was in the 59th Brigade, working mostly with Ukrainians, and not in the International Legion. I never would have gone back to the International Legion. I would have stayed with the regular army.

I quit the army after two years. I'd done my time. I'd been blown up twice. I've got injuries from the war. I've got metal still all over my body. It took its toll not only on my body and my mind, but also it took its toll on my family. My mom and dad had multiple years of sleepless nights of worrying for me. So it was just the right time to call it quits. Also, the war was changing. It wasn't like the first two years, where we were going out and fighting Russians, firefights and force on force. Drones began to take over. I always accepted that a Russian soldier, tank, or artillery could kill me. But when drones became such a big factor in the war, then it wasn't for me anymore.

The process of recruitment has changed a lot since the beginning of the war. Military experience and combat experience wasn't as important at the beginning of the full invasion as it is now. The full invasion is over three years old now. There's a lot of recruitment online, so foreigners do get to see it. If they wanted to be here, after three years they would have been here.

I don't want to go too much into the negatives, but it's hard to bring in new people, especially Ukrainians, into this war, when so many cases of corruption are getting found out. You're asking men to go to fight on the front lines, while rich people that sit behind office desks in Kyiv are taking money that doesn't belong to them, and they're benefiting from this war.

I don't think it's going to end anytime soon. Even if there is some kind of agreement, my personal opinion is that Putin is always going to come back. When he invaded this country, what he wanted was the whole country. He never wanted just the east. He wanted everything. So I believe even if there is some sort of a ceasefire or something, they will restrengthen and come back again.

Trump's been very disappointing. I'm not quite sure really what's going on with him, but it looks very much that he's on Putin and Russia's side. I think he's forgotten about NATO. I think he's forgotten about Ukraine. And for whatever reasons, he seems to be Putin's best friend just now. It seems like Putin is almost in control of Trump. I don't understand what's going on, but it's not good for the world.

“Russians have no regard for human life”

Call sign Black Hawk, Colombian fighter of the Khartiia Brigade

Like all kids in Colombia, I wanted to be in the military. I joined the army in 2007, at the age of 18. Colombia has compulsory military service because of the internal conflict with the FARC. I served two years and then continued my career as a professional soldier, entering the Colombian special forces. I took part in real combat, aerial assaults, and contributed to several special operations. The most important was on September 22, 2010, when we eliminated one of the highest-level FARC commanders, known as Mono Jojoy.

I’ve always liked reading and learning about political conflicts. In Colombia, we always knew, thanks to military intelligence, who was on the right side of history: which countries finance or support terrorism, and which are legitimate. Vladimir Putin has been a friend of the FARC. He is also an ally of Maduro. So I’ve always known he’s a terrorist president.

When I learned that Russia invaded Ukraine, it was my opportunity to at least somehow retaliate against what Putin had done to our country. It was my chance to be on the right side.

When the war began I couldn’t enter Ukraine because I simply couldn’t find any information on how to join their army. So I gave up on the idea for a while. Over time, I made contact with someone from the International Legion. I spoke to him and made sure everything was legal. They sent me an invitation letter, and I arrived here in August or September 2024.

Ukrainians gave me a very warm welcome. When I said I was Colombian, they treated me like a hero before I’d even fought.

I have vast military experience — I’m an anti-explosive technician and I’ve done airborne special operations — so I wanted a role where all of my skills could be utilized. When I joined the assault unit, it went very well. I am proud to say that I participated in an important assault operation, capturing a fairly large territory that we still hold today.

Military training in Ukraine is well organized. We get more training than we did in Colombia. It’s a consistent effort. I joined other fighters to learn the basics and completed separate training for trench assaults. Despite my experience in Colombia, everyone must receive hands-on training.

Working with Ukrainians has been a fascinating experience. They seem like very good people. We use a translator app to communicate at military bases, so it’s a bit easier. I’ve learned a few Ukrainian words, especially military terms — crucial combat commands like “left” and “right.” It’s not much, but it’s enough for daily communication.

The difference between warfare in Ukraine and Colombia is huge. In Colombia, we had the advantage over the enemy in terms of firepower, weapons, helicopters, and military support. Here in Ukraine, the sides are more balanced, more even. Yet even though the Russians have a lot of artillery and drones, they are no good at assaults. They treat their own soldiers like cannon fodder and try to push through with numbers.

Waging war against them isn’t so difficult. One can tell they’re poor fighters. When they are out of options and can’t face the enemy, they deploy anti-personnel mines to stop our troops — in violation of international humanitarian law. They do it out of desperation, seeing imminent defeat. The FARC resorts to the same methods, using anti-personnel mines when they know they’re losing the battle and it’s the only way to avoid complete defeat.

The Russians have no regard for human life. The only support their infantry gets is artillery and drones. Normally, when a unit comes under attack, a reinforcement is deployed to repel the assault. But it’s not what Russians do: they recklessly throw their soldiers into battle and abandon them during retreat.

To stay sane, I video-chat with my daughter. She’s grown up now, and we have a good rapport. She is the one who keeps me going. When I was getting ready to go, she asked me if I was going to leave her without a dad. She knew something could happen to me here.

Every person in the world should realize one thing: today it’s Ukraine, and tomorrow it could be any country, in Europe or beyond. Putin’s terrorist goal is to bring war to anyone who is not on his side. And we must stand in solidarity with Ukraine so that when, God forbid, it happens with another country, they’ll be ready.

We should all read more about the history of international conflicts, because those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. We must support one another, stand on the right side of history, and support a country that needs it. Many lives are being lost because of a single terrorist, and we must be acutely aware of that.