{"id":4501,"date":"2025-09-12T11:26:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T11:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/the-mad-and-the-brave-inside-ukraines-foreign-legion\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T05:22:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:22:58","slug":"the-mad-and-the-brave-inside-ukraines-foreign-legion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/the-mad-and-the-brave-inside-ukraines-foreign-legion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mad and the Brave: Inside Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Legion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In his new book,\u00a0The Mad and the Brave, journalist Colin Freeman explores the foreign volunteers who joined Ukraine\u2019s International Legion \u2013 men and women driven by courage, madness, and a search for meaning.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Colin Freeman<\/em><\/p>\n

Coming up with a title for a new book is never easy. First, it has to say what it\u2019s about \u2013 secondly, it has to do so in just a few catchy, zeitgeisty words.<\/p>\n

So I was rather chuffed when I thought up the original title for my book on Ukraine\u2019s International Legion, which I was going to call\u00a0It\u2019s Not Like Call of Duty<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This, I thought, would sum up the experience of many of the fresh-faced volunteers who came to Ukraine at the start of the war \u2013 many of them combat virgins, whose only knowledge of a battlefield was playing video games.<\/p>\n

Alas, when I suggested this inspired title to my agent, it was my own turn for a reality jolt. The games firm behind\u00a0Call of Duty<\/em>, he said, might regard it as copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

We then tried to brainstorm a substitute.\u00a0Zelensky\u2019s Foreign Legion<\/em>? A bit plodding.\u00a0Homage to Ukraine<\/em>, in honour of\u00a0Homage to Catalonia<\/em>, Orwell\u2019s classic on volunteering in the Spanish Civil War? \u201cA bit grand to compare yourself to one of Britain\u2019s greatest writers,\u201d said my other half.<\/p>\n

Eventually, it was the publisher, HarperCollins, who came to the rescue, with\u00a0The Mad and the Brave: the Untold Story of Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Legion<\/em>. This, I think, encapsulates the two qualities that most foreign volunteers have (albeit in varying ratios).<\/p>\n

The \u201cBrave\u201d bit is self-explanatory, as anyone who has visited Ukraine\u2019s frontlines can attest. Just as it isn\u2019t\u00a0Call of Duty<\/em>, it isn\u2019t Iraq or Afghanistan either, where Western armies wielded the upper hand and could call in air strikes and helicopter medevacs.<\/p>\n

In Ukraine, Westerners are on the side of the underdogs \u2013 constantly outgunned and outmanned by a bigger, stronger enemy. Spending any time on those frontlines requires a degree of courage, given how the odds are stacked against you. As one volunteer once told me:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re like the White Taliban.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It is the \u201cMad\u201d bit, though, that really marks the volunteers out from other soldiers \u2013 and which partly inspired me to write the book in the first place.<\/p>\n

For what they nearly all have in common, be they Afghan-hardened ex-Paras or raw novices, is that other people \u2013 partners, parents, peers, pals \u2013 all thought they were bonkers.<\/p>\n

Ukraine may well be as noble a cause as fighting Franco\u2019s Fascists in Spain. Yet when they first mentioned their plans to sign up for the Legion, very few at all got an encouraging pat on the back.<\/p>\n

Instead, loved ones pushed back hard.\u00a0You\u2019re crazy. You\u2019ll get killed. Why fight in someone else\u2019s war, even if it\u2019s a just one?<\/em>\u00a0Some even had their mental health questioned. Family and friends would inquire, gently, whether they were feeling suicidal, whether this was all just a cry for help.<\/p>\n

Most were perfectly sane. But it still made volunteering in Ukraine a very different experience from fighting in any other war.<\/p>\n

No friends and family cheerfully waving them off. No insurance or medical cover. And nobody but themselves to blame if all went horribly wrong, which it might well do.<\/p>\n

Quite a few got told they were selfish, downright stupid, that this was all about them, not the cause. Not the words any soldier wants ringing in their ears as they head off to war.<\/p>\n

That, though, is what makes the Legionnaires an interesting study in human psychology. After all, what kind of person abandons a comfortable civilian life in the West overnight to go and fight in someone else\u2019s war?<\/p>\n

Not just any old war either, but the biggest since World War II, and up against a superpower army that cares little for the niceties of the Geneva convention?<\/p>\n

The volunteers in my book reveal a wide range of motives. Some, indeed, see themselves as modern-day Orwells, fighting a Russian version of Franco\u2019s fascists. Others, particularly the professional ex-soldiers, are keen to test their infantry skills against a peer army.<\/p>\n

Many, though, simply feel bored and restless in the safe, cossetted West, and want to see if they can handle full-on, old-school warfare of the kind their forefathers did. Reviewers of the book have described it as\u00a0\u201cFight Club on steroids\u201d<\/em>, which I think is a valid comparison.<\/p>\n

To quote\u00a0Fight Club\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Tyler Durden:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War\u2019s a spiritual war\u2026 our Great Depression is our lives.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This, I think, is what sustains many of the volunteers through thick and thin, through the horrors of combat, and the deaths and injuries of comrades.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that they\u2019re fighting the gauntlet of tyranny thrown by Vladimir Putin \u2013 they\u2019re also fighting a gauntlet thrown by themselves, to see if they can be heroes of their own version of\u00a0Band of Brothers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For example, one volunteer, ex-Royal Engineer Jack Knight, was seeking to follow the footsteps of an ancestor who\u2019d won the Victoria Cross, rescuing wounded comrades while under fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from a military family, and it\u2019s quite a thing to have in your bloodline,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Knight, 32, told me way back at the start of the war.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019d always wanted to know if I could live up to his reputation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

For Knight, who had missed out on serving in Afghanistan, Ukraine was also likely to be the only opportunity he would ever have to fight. So off he went \u2013 and in late 2023, duly won a bravery medal for rescuing wounded comrades from a minefield.<\/p>\n

He is now back in the UK, his fighting days over. But like nearly every volunteer I\u2019ve interviewed \u2013 including some who endured months of torture as Russian PoWs \u2013 he credits the war with giving him a renewed sense of purpose in life.<\/p>\n

Whether the volunteers have made much difference on the battlefield is another matter. At most, it\u2019s thought that only around 20,000 have served with the Legion over the past three years \u2013 which, in a conflict with roughly half a million participants on either side, is no game changer.<\/p>\n

Arguably, the Legionnaire\u2019s biggest contribution has been to Ukrainian morale, reminding that for some Westerners at least, the slogan\u00a0\u201cWe Stand with Ukraine\u201d<\/em>\u00a0meant more than just cheerleading from afar.<\/p>\n

Yet if and when the war ends, the Legionnaires will probably return home as unceremoniously as they left. There will be no homecoming parades, no medals, and no Prime Minister welcoming them back (HMG advises against anyone volunteering).<\/p>\n

Indeed, so far, the only organisation that intends to mark their contribution is the Ukrainian Embassy in London, which has plans for a memorial once the conflict is over.<\/p>\n

It falls somewhat short of the recognition given to Orwell and his fellow volunteers in Spain, who have come to personify the selfless, noble freedom fighter. There are plaques and memorials commemorating them in town halls and trade union HQs nationwide \u2013 and a movie,\u00a0Land and Freedom<\/em>, by the film director Ken Loach.<\/p>\n

That, though, is because most were members of communist parties and trade unions, who actively encouraged their members to do their bit for the cause.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s volunteers, by contrast, have nobody urging them to go except themselves, and made that momentous decision alone.<\/p>\n

That, I would argue, requires a special kind of bravery \u2013 and yes, probably a little madness too.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his new book,\u00a0The Mad and the Brave, journalist Colin Freeman explores the foreign volunteers who joined Ukraine\u2019s International Legion \u2013 men and women driven by courage, madness, and a search for meaning. By Colin Freeman Coming up with a title for a new book is never easy. First, it has to say what it\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4503,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4501\/revisions\/4503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}