They Came to Fight for Ukraine. Now They’re Stuck in No Man’s Land.
When separatists started a war in eastern Ukraine, hundreds of Russians, Belarusians, and other foreigners came to Kiev’s defense. Now they’ve been abandoned.
KIEV, Ukraine — In May 2014, Rudolph, then a 19-year-old student in Gomel, in eastern Belarus, saw a post on Facebook that inspired him. “This is not a war of Russia with Ukraine; this is a war between freedom and lawlessness,” wrote Semen Semenchenko, a prolific Facebook blogger and the commander of the Donbass Battalion, a volunteer paramilitary unit fighting against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The commander called on sympathetic Russians and Belarusians to come help their neighbor in its time of need, announcing that he was recruiting foreigners “who share our views and want to help.”
