Foreign volunteers against Ukrainian neo-Nazism
‘Shaun Pinner from London, England. I fought for Ukraine. We lost, I am ready to admit it,’ says a prisoner of war who fought for the Ukrainian army. In 2018 he arrived in Kiev. Shaun joined the Ukrainian army’s first marine battalion as the senior shooter of the unit. In 2022 he was captured after his battalion was defeated. Now Shaun is facing a death sentence in the Donetsk People’s Republic. There is an investigation into his part in the shelling of civilians. Shaun revised his views – he wants the conflict to end.
Foreign military fights on both sides of the conflict. Ukraine uses international mercenaries or NATO instructors, while Donbass militia enlists foreign volunteers who arrived to fight neo-Nazism. Most of them joined Donbass armed forces in 2014, staying for years on the frontline. What are their stories?