Key Points and Summary – Kyiv’s World War II museum now features today’s foreign fighters in Ukraine—an exhibit unthinkable four years ago. Curators cite “several thousand” Americans and at least 92 U.S. fatalities.
-A Ukrainian platoon leader describes mixed motives and backgrounds: ideals, second chances, and troubled pasts, with U.S. veterans prized for training.
A U.S. M1A1 Abrams tank needed for training the Armed Forces of Ukraine awaits offloading at Grafenwoehr, Germany, May 14, 2023. The M1A1 training is expected to last several weeks and will include live fire, crew qualification, maneuver, and maintainer training. Armed Forces of Ukraine training is conducted by 7th Army Training Command at Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels training areas in Germany on behalf of U.S. Army Europe and Africa. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Christian Carrillo)
-Unlike the WWII “Flying Tigers,” volunteers get little official help; nonprofits such as the R.T. Weatherman Foundation step in for medevacs and remains.
-On Russia’s side, reports note outside personnel—including attempts to recruit Lao sappers—amid broader alignment moves with Vientiane.
-The flow of U.S. volunteers fluctuates, but the war’s pull endures.
The Ukraine War: Americans Are Fighting and Dying
WARSAW, POLAND – In the capital city, Kyiv, the “Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War” has opened a new exhibit in one of the facility’s galleries. The exhibition would not have been imaginable four years ago.
It is an exhibit featuring combatants from foreign countries who are fighting alongside Ukraine in the current war against Russia. Among those are “several thousands” of Americans, said one of the museum’s curators, Yurii Horpynych. On a more somber note, the museum’s count of casualties calculates that at least 92 of those have been killed in action in Ukraine.
In a recent interview with a Ukrainian officer, the New York Times reports that Senior Lt. Mykola Lavrenyuk told the US daily that those who come to fight in Ukraine are a diverse lot.
“Some people come to Ukraine with a motive to fight for freedom, for what is right,” said Senior Lt. Lavrenyuk, who is himself the Ukrainian commander of a platoon of international soldiers that includes Americans. “Others want to make money or are running from the law.”
He recounted that there have been US combatants who have arrived with a history of poor dental care, including missing teeth, and others with drug and legal problems. One American soldier, he recounted, was wanted back in the US on charges of smuggling drugs over the Mexican border.
Before this checkered background was discovered and he was arrested, “he fought well,” the Senior Lt. said. US combat veterans, he said, are highly sought after because they are generally better trained than veterans from other countries’ militaries. “It’s awesome” to have them in the ranks, he exclaimed.
Russia’s Foreign Fighters
These Americans and other foreign volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine are facing the combined armies of Russia, tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers, and “volunteers” from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), plus other nations ideologically aligned with Moscow.
Among the more recent nations to join Russia’s “Coalition of Evil,” as it is called in Ukraine and in European capitals, are dozens of sappers that Moscow has been trying to recruit from Laos. Mine-laying in this war has been pervasive—if not overkill—and after horrendous losses on the battlefield, the Russian army lacks enough skilled, trained personnel to do the job.
A Ukrainian publication commented that what Russia gets from pulling Laos into the conflict “isn’t [economies of] scale—it’s symbolism. In a region where most governments have kept their distance from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Vientiane offers quiet, uncritical cooperation—and perhaps more importantly, another potential belligerent that can’t afford to say no. Saddled with debt and internal dysfunction, Laos is the kind of partner Moscow knows how to work with.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime had been working on Laos to pull it into an alliance since the war with Ukraine began. In 2022, Laos adopted the Russian Mir payment system. This substitute banking method was a means of moving money to circumvent the many sanctions on Russian banking institutions.
This, said the same Ukrainian United 24 Media article, “is a clear signal of alignment with Russia as a foreign partner.” Moscow then reciprocated by pledging $12 million to upgrade a hospital in Vientiane. Direct airline flights were then resumed between the Russian Far Eastern Pacific Port City of Vladivostok and the Lao capital, and Russian tourists can now enter Laos visa-free for stays of up to 30 days in duration.
Laos needs the alliance for economic survival; its authoritarian system matches Russia’s, and they both have a disdain for the West. In a war that has Russia isolated from most of the world, Vientiane remains one of the few capitals that will pick up the phone when Putin rings up.
“It’s Not the Flying Tigers”: Don’t Ask For Help From the Embassy
One major problem for the US volunteers is that Washington is determined to avoid any suggestion of direct involvement in the confrontation between the nuclear-armed Russians and the American military, even if these US soldiers are retired from active duty.
Consequently, the US Embassy and other official institutions provide almost no assistance to volunteer combatants.
“These Americans fighting against Russia are not treated like the Flying Tigers,” said a volunteer who was previously wounded in Ukraine. “Officialdom in the US does not want to know,” he said.
The Flying Tigers, officially called The American Volunteer Group (AVG), were civilian pilots who flew US fighter aircraft and fought for Chang Kai-shek’s Republic of China Kuomintang (KMT) government against the Japanese before the US entered the war in December 1941. After the war, they were feted as heroes—a happy ending that is unlikely for these soldiers “chewing the dirt” in places like the Donbas.
There is instead a US nonprofit group, the R.T. Weatherman Foundation, that assists Americans wounded while fighting in the Ukrainian army. They also return remains of deceased soldiers to the United States and track cases of those who are still missing in action.
The flow of American volunteers, according to the Ukrainian military, has ebbed and flowed since the February 2022 invasion. Independent estimates are that the number of Americans volunteering since 2022 has ranged from more than 1,000 to several thousand. The Ukrainian military does not release figures, citing operational security considerations.
These American enlistees have a cornucopia of motivations for joining the fight, according to the Ukrainian military officials interviewed. “Some come looking for purpose and possibilities they found lacking in dead-end jobs back home,” one Ukrainian officer explained. “Outrage at Russian aggression remains high on the list of reasons, while some soldiers are looking for a way to leave behind troubled lives. Still others want second chances at military careers and to test themselves in combat.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the US Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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