As the war in Ukraine grinds on, as our attention is distracted by strife in the Middle East, and as security assistance legislation languishes in Congress because of political bickering, brave men and women and innocent children continue to be slaughtered by the Russian aggressors.
The number of civilians killed since the Russian invasion two years ago is estimated to be more than 10,250, including 575 children.
The number of military casualties is much higher. While neither Ukraine nor Russia provide official figures on their military losses, estimates range between 30,000 and 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed.
In addition, there have been – and continue to be – casualties among the thousands of foreign volunteers who have flocked to Ukraine to fight with or alongside regular Ukrainian military units and as part of the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine, part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
It is difficult to determine how many foreign fighters have joined the war against Russia. One source claims that 16,000 volunteers have joined the Ukrainian army.
Ukrainian officials initially said 20,000 people from more than 50 countries – including 3,000 from the U.S. had answered the call. More recent reports suggest the number is lower. It is estimated that between 1,000 and 3,000 foreign volunteers are still fighting in Ukraine.
According to the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, Americans and Central-Eastern Europeans constitute the highest numbers of Westerners fighting for Ukraine.
While it is difficult to determine how many Americans have volunteered to fight in Ukraine, or continue to serve there, the number of Americans who have died volunteering or fighting in Ukraine is better known.
In August of last year, it was estimated that 17 former U.S. military had been killed in Ukraine.
Less than six months later, Task & Purpose reported that 46 Americans have died in Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 22, including more than 30 U.S. military veterans.
Russia, on the other hand, as part of its war propaganda and referring to the volunteers as “mercenaries,” without providing any evidence claimed that the foreign volunteers “have mostly been liquidated,” adding that “more than 5,800 militants were eliminated, including…466 from the United States of America…”
The use of the term “mercenaries” to describe the American volunteers is inaccurate and derogatory.
Robert Lawless, an assistant professor in the Department of Law at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, explains in “Are Mercenaries in Ukraine?” why the term in this context is incorrect.
“A member of the armed forces of a belligerent is not a mercenary, he writes, “The Ukrainian government has formally incorporated the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine into its armed forces. Thus, the Legion’s reported 20,000 foreign members—including 3,000 Americans—are not mercenaries,” he writes citing Article 47 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions.
Countering the often-heard claim that Ukraine volunteers are motivated by private gain, Lawless writes that the motivation of foreign fighters may “have little to do with personal financial gain.”
On the contrary, he writes, such reasons are, for example, “patriotism, humanitarianism, national duty, hatred, and prejudice.”
Task & Purpose regularly publishes obituaries for those U.S. veterans who have died fighting in Ukraine. In them, we learn from surviving family members and close friends, and sometimes from the volunteers themselves before they made the ultimate sacrifice, about their character and about the motivations that led them to give their life for a people and a nation not theirs.
Take for example 33-year-old Marine veteran Thomas Gray Harris who, in late October, “was shot in the right arm and took shrapnel from a grenade to his left side during a fierce fight with Russian troops,” only to be killed in a car crash on November 24 on his way back to the front line.
His parents told Task & Purpose that Harris filled his life with acts of compassion. “While we are devastated by the loss of our son, we are proud of him and his service to freedom,” they said.
Marine veteran Ethan Hunter Hertweck is one of the most recent American veterans to die in Ukraine. While on his second tour in that country, he was killed in action December 8, 2023, less than two weeks before he was scheduled to return home to Springfield Missouri.
According to Military.com, Ethan’s comrades told Ethan’s mother Leslie, “He saved people … from incoming Russian bombs…We’re told he ran and was saving civilians he didn’t even know, because that’s just who he was…that’s how he wanted to serve, to help save lives.”
“[Ethan] gave his life for a country and people he had fallen in love with,” his mother said.
How about Ethan himself? Well, his mother recalls an axion Ethan often quoted, “All that’s necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Frustrated with and disheartened by Congress’ inaction on Ukraine, families and friends of American veterans killed in Ukraine and veterans who have served in that country traveled to Washington to urge members Congress to approve additional war aid for Ukraine.
Mark Jannetta, a former U.S. Army infantry soldier who served in Ukraine’s International Legion in 2022 and 2023, who was injured there, and who calls the conflict “a classic war of good versus evil,” is one of the veterans who traveled to Washington.
In an interview with WSIU Radio/NPR, Jannetta describes the ongoing tragedy which he fortunately survived. “I’m not going to forget, and so that’s why I’m doing this interview and talking to Congress, just trying to keep awareness alive and hopefully save lives rather than see more destroyed,” he says.
Karla Webber, the mother of West Point graduate and Army veteran Andrew Webber, who was killed in July 2023 while fighting in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, also traveled to Washington.
According to Task & Purpose, she framed resistance to the Russian invasion as “the battle for freedom against aggression and tyranny” and said, “I would ask our leaders on the Hill here to put aside everything they think they want and do what’s right even if there’s nothing in it for them.”
She also said, “I’ll come back, I’ll kick in doors…”
