“For a foreigner, Donbas is another planet.” Ukraine’s military includes volunteers from around the world. But bringing a foreigner into the Armed Forces is not as simple as handing them a rifle and signing a contract. Capt. Oleksii Bezhevets commands a UAV company in the Flash unmanned systems battalion of Ukraine’s 28th Mechanized Brigade. His unit includes volunteers from 22 countries — Americans, Europeans, Brazilians and others, ranging from roughly 18 to almost 60 years old. Some arrived with no military experience. Others had served in Iraq, Afghanistan or in their national armed forces. And even the veterans tell him: “We have experience, but your war is completely different.” In Flash, foreigners become drone pilots, navigators, drivers and eventually commanders. English has become a working language at the command post. But first they have to adapt. A volunteer arriving from a peaceful country enters an environment where danger does not end when the mission does. “For a foreigner coming from an absolutely peaceful environment and landing in Donbas, it is like another planet. Everything here is unfamiliar.” 🇺🇸 Bezhevets remembers an American named Adam spending weeks in winter hacking through frozen Donbas soil with an axe to build a fighting position — and then spending months operating from it. “What kind of motivation does it take to come from America and hammer away at the frozen ground of Donbas just to dig a position? And then fight from it for several months?” Drone warfare brings another misconception crashing down. Becoming an effective FPV pilot is not a few weeks of joystick training. Bezhevets estimates that taking someone from zero to an effective operator can require up to six months of continuous training and practice. A frontline drone operator may need to be a pilot, navigator, technician, engineer and sapper at the same time. And the technology never stops changing. What worked six months ago — sometimes even one month ago — may already be obsolete. Then there is the human cost. Foreign volunteers in the unit have helped evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers under conditions Bezhevets describes starkly: “There is blood, screaming, a sky that wants to kill you and ground that wants to blow you up. And in those conditions, you are not saving yourself — you are helping someone else.” Some return to combat immediately. Others need time. Ukraine therefore needs more than foreign recruitment. It needs an entire ecosystem around these volunteers: English-speaking commanders and psychologists, training, reliable equipment, medical support, recovery, assistance after injury, support for families of the fallen and a veteran policy accessible in their language. “You cannot simply recruit tens of thousands of people and then start wondering what to do with them. It doesn’t work that way.” His principle is simpler: “They came to help. We have to help them so they can help us.” Some eventually return home. Others now tell their commander they want to stay in Ukraine, build families here and make this country their home. They arrived as foreign volunteers. Some may leave as Ukrainian veterans. Full interview👇 Source: ArmyInform / 28th Mechanized Brigade, August 11, 2026 This story was produced in cooperation with Ukraine’s Foreigners Recruitment Center. @UAFRC. #Ukraine #ForeignVolunteers #DroneWarfare #Donbas #UkrainianArmy #UkraineWar

Day 1469 3 March 2026 A brutally harvested day for the invading army. Russian losses in the past 24 hours: 🔥 1,529 UAVs 🔥 790 personnel 🔥 235 vehicles 🔥 47 artillery systems 🔥 20 armoured combat vehicles 🔥 6 air defence systems 🔥 5 tanks 🔥 1 warship On Ukraine’s frontline, there are no pauses — only systematic dismantling of the aggressor’s war machine. #Ukraine #WarInUkraine #RussianLosses