US citizens seek to join foreign fighters in Ukraine

So far, about 100 US citizens have made the cut, including veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with combat experience and some helicopter pilots. (File/AFP)
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Updated 10 March 2022
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US citizens seek to join foreign fighters in Ukraine

  • The US government discourages Americans from going to fight in Ukraine
  • Half the potential volunteers were quickly rejected and didn’t even make it to the Zoom interview

WASHINGTON: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given the smaller nation’s embassy in Washington an unexpected role: recruitment center for Americans who want to join the fight.
Diplomats working out of the embassy, in a townhouse in the Georgetown section of the city, are fielding thousands of offers from volunteers seeking to fight for Ukraine, even as they work on the far more pressing matter of securing weapons to defend against an increasingly brutal Russian onslaught.
“They really feel that this war is unfair, unprovoked,” said Ukraine’s military attaché, Maj. Gen. Borys Kremenetskyi. “They feel that they have to go and help.”
US volunteers represent just a small subset of foreigners seeking to fight for Ukraine, who in turn comprise just a tiny fraction of the international assistance that has flowed into the country. Still, it is a a reflection of the passion, supercharged in an era of social media, that the attack and the mounting civilian casualties have stirred.
“This is not mercenaries who are coming to earn money,” Kremenetskyi said. “This is people of goodwill who are coming to assist Ukraine to fight for freedom.”
The US government discourages Americans from going to fight in Ukraine, which raises legal and national security issues.
Since the Feb. 24 invasion, the embassy in Washington has heard from at least 6,000 people inquiring about volunteering for service, the “vast majority” of them American citizens, said Kremenetskyi, who oversees the screening of potential US recruits.
Half the potential volunteers were quickly rejected and didn’t even make it to the Zoom interview, the general said. They lacked the required military experience, had a criminal background or weren’t suitable for other reasons such as age, including a 16-year-old boy and a 73-year-old man.
Some who expressed interest were rejected because the embassy said it couldn’t do adequate vetting. The general didn’t disclose the methods used to screen people.
Kremenetskyi, who spoke to The Associated Press just after returning from the Pentagon for discussions on the military hardware his country needs for its defense, said he appreciates the support from both the US government and the public.
“Russians can be stopped only with hard fists and weapons,” he said.
So far, about 100 US citizens have made the cut. They include veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with combat experience, including some helicopter pilots, the attaché said.
They must make their own way to Poland, where they are to cross at a specified point, with their own protective gear but without a weapon, which they will get after they arrive. They will be required to sign a contract to serve, without pay, in the International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government says about 20,000 foreigners from various nations have already joined.
Borys Wrzesnewskyj, a former Liberal lawmaker in Canada who is helping to facilitate recruitment there, said about 1,000 Canadians have applied to fight for Ukraine, the vast majority of whom don’t have any ties to the country.
“The volunteers, a very large proportion are ex-military, these are people that made that tough decision that they would enter the military to stand up for the values that we subscribe to,” Wrzesnewskyj said. “And when they see what is happening in Ukraine they can’t stand aside.”
It’s not clear how many US citizens seeking to fight have actually reached Ukraine, a journey the State Department has urged people not to make.
“We’ve been very clear for some time, of course, in calling on Americans who may have been resident in Ukraine to leave, and making clear to Americans who may be thinking of traveling there not to go,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters recently.
US citizens aren’t required to register overseas. The State Department says it’s not certain how many have entered Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
Under some circumstances, Americans could face criminal penalties, or even risk losing their citizenship, by taking part in an overseas conflict, according to a senior federal law enforcement official.
But the legal issues are only one of many concerns for US authorities, who worry about what could happen if an American is killed or captured or is recruited while over there to work for a foreign intelligence service upon their return home, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
The official and independent security experts say some of the potential foreign fighters may be white supremacists, who are believed to be fighting on both sides of the conflict. They could become more radicalized and gain military training in Ukraine, thereby posing an increased danger when they return home.
“These are men who want adventure, a sense of significance and are harking back to World War II rhetoric,” said Anne Speckhard, who has extensively studied foreigners who fought in Syria and elsewhere as director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism.
Ukraine may be getting around some of the potential legal issues by only facilitating the overseas recruitment, and directing volunteers to sign their contracts, and receive a weapon, once they arrive in the country. Also, by assigning them to the territorial defense forces, and not front-line units, it reduces the chance of direct combat with Russians, though it’s by no means eliminated.
The general acknowledges the possibility that any foreigners who are captured could be used for propaganda purposes. But he didn’t dwell on the issue, focusing instead on the need for his country to defend itself against Russia.
“We are fighting for our existence,” he said. “We are fighting for our families, for our land. And we are not going to give up.”


Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh demand safe return to Myanmar on 8th anniversary of exodus

Updated 26 August 2025
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Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh demand safe return to Myanmar on 8th anniversary of exodus

  • “We want to go back to our country with equal rights like other ethnic groups in Myanmar,” one of the protesters, 19-year-old Nur Aziz, told The Associated Press
  • The Bangladesh government, which was led at the time by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, ordered the border to be opened, eventually allowing more than 700,000 refugees to take shelter in the Muslim-majority nation

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in dozens of camps in Bangladesh marked the eighth anniversary of their mass exodus, demanding a safe return to their previous home in Rakhine state.
The refugees gathered Monday in an open field at a camp in Kutupalong, in the Cox’s Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh, the site of a large refugee camp. They carried banners reading “No more refugee life” and “Repatriation the ultimate solution.” They were marking what they called “Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day.”
“We want to go back to our country with equal rights like other ethnic groups in Myanmar,” one of the protesters, 19-year-old Nur Aziz, told The Associated Press. “The rights they are enjoying in Myanmar as citizens of the country, we too want to enjoy the same rights.”
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, urged the international community to facilitate a process for their safe return as he addressed a three-day conference on the Rohingya that began a day earlier in Cox’s Bazar.
International dignitaries, United Nations representatives, diplomats and Bangladesh’s interim government discussed supporting refugees with food and other amenities and how to speed up the repatriation process.
Yunus said that that the “relationship of Rohingyas with their homeland cannot be severed.”
“Their right to return to their homeland has to be secured,” he said. “Therefore, we urge all parties and partners to work hard for charting a practical roadmap for their speedy, safe, dignified, voluntary and sustainable return to their homes in Rakhine as soon as possible.”
Myanmar launched a brutal crackdown in August 2017 following insurgent attacks on guard posts in Rakhine state. The scale, organization and ferocity of the operation led to accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide from the international community, including the UN
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims began leaving Myanmar then. They traveled by foot and boats during shelling, indiscriminate killings and other violence in Rakhine state, which was captured by the Arakan Army insurgent group that has battled against Myanmar government forces.
The Bangladesh government, which was led at the time by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, ordered the border to be opened, eventually allowing more than 700,000 refugees to take shelter in the Muslim-majority nation. The influx was in addition to more than 300,000 refugees who already had lived in Bangladesh for decades in the wake of previous violence perpetrated by Myanmar’s military.
Since 2017, Bangladesh has attempted at least twice to send the refugees back and has urged the international community to build pressure on Myanmar’s government to establish a peaceful environment that could assist their repatriation. The governments under Hasina and Yunus also have sought repatriation support from China.
But the situation inside Myanmar has remained volatile, especially in Rakhine state. In Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees face challenges including aid cuts by donors.
Yunus urged the regional and international stakeholders to continue to support the Rohingya people, including with financial support.
“We urge upon all to calibrate their relations with Myanmar and the Arakan Army and all parties to the conflict in order to promote an early resolution of this protracted crisis,” he said.
 

 


Indonesia launches a measles vaccination campaign after 17 die in an outbreak

Updated 26 August 2025
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Indonesia launches a measles vaccination campaign after 17 die in an outbreak

  • A major outbreak occurred in the easternmost province of Papua in 2018, causing dozens of deaths
  • Just 72 percent of Indonesia’s 22 million children under 5 received the measles vaccine last year, and in some provinces, vaccination rates were below 50 percent, according to data from Statistics Indonesia

SUMENEP, Indonesia: Hundreds of children in Indonesia lined up for free measles shots Monday as authorities rolled out a vaccination campaign in response to an outbreak that has caused 17 deaths.
More than 2,000 children were infected in East Java province over the past eight months, according to officials who said 16 of the 17 deaths occurred in Sumenep district. Sixteen patients were not immunized and one did not complete the vaccines, according to data from Sumenep District Health Agency.
Indonesia has reported previous outbreaks of the highly infectious disease, mostly driven by gaps in vaccination coverage in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.
A major outbreak occurred in the easternmost province of Papua in 2018, causing dozens of deaths. That year, the Indonesian Ulema Council reported the measles and rubella vaccine used for mass immunization programs contained pork. Use of the vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India was permitted until a halal vaccine without pork could be found.
Just 72 percent of Indonesia’s 22 million children under 5 received the measles vaccine last year, and in some provinces, vaccination rates were below 50 percent, according to data from Statistics Indonesia.
Indonesian authorities have called on residents and community and religious leaders to support immunization efforts. The mass vaccination in Sumenep is targeting 78,000 children from 9 months to 6 years old.
“Otherwise, this disease, measles, will spread further among our children. It will be even more fatal in the future,” said Imam Hasyim, deputy chief of Sumenep district.
Globally, the World Health Organization says 84 percent of children received the first dose of measles vaccine last year, and 76 percent had received two doses. But experts say measles vaccine rates need to reach 95 percent to prevent outbreaks.
WHO noted that 60 countries reported big measles outbreaks last year.
 

 


Trump says he wants to meet North Korea’s Kim again

Updated 26 August 2025
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Trump says he wants to meet North Korea’s Kim again

  • Trump contended that North Korea has been firing fewer rockets since he returned to the White House on January 20

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Monday he hoped to meet again with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, as he held White House talks with South Korea’s dovish new leader that got off awkwardly.
Hours before President Lee Jae Myung arrived for his long-planned first visit to the White House, Trump took to social media to denounce what he said was a “Purge or Revolution” in South Korea, apparently over raids that involved churches.
Forty minutes into an Oval Office meeting in which Lee profusely praised Trump, the US leader dismissed his own sharply worded rebuke, saying, “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding” as “there is a rumor going around.”
Trump said he believed he was on the same page on North Korea as Lee, a progressive who supports diplomacy over confrontation.
Trump, who met Kim Jong Un three times in his first term, hailed his relationship with the young totalitarian and said he knew him “better than anybody, almost, other than his sister.”
“Someday I’ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me,” Trump told reporters, saying he hoped the talks would take place this year.
Trump contended that North Korea has been firing fewer rockets since he returned to the White House on January 20.
The president has boasted that he has solved seven wars in as many months back in the job — a claim that is contested — but had been quiet on North Korea despite the unusually personal diplomacy during his 2017-2021 tenure.
Trump once said that he and Kim “fell in love.” Their meetings reduced tensions but failed to produce a lasting agreement.
Pyongyang rebuffed overtures from Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, which Trump said showed they did not respect him.
But Kim has also been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight.
North Korea has dug in and refused any talk of ending its nuclear weapons program.

Lee, a former labor rights lawyer who has criticized the US military in the past, immediately flattered his host and said Trump has made the United States “not a keeper of peace, but a maker of peace.”
“I look forward to your meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un and construction of Trump Tower in North Korea and playing golf” there, Lee told him.
He even cited propaganda from North Korea that denounced South Korea by noting that Pyongyang said the relationship with Trump was better.
Kim “will be waiting for you,” Lee told him.
Lee was elected in June after the impeachment of the more hawkish Yoon Suk Yeol, who briefly imposed martial law.
The raids denounced by Trump likely referred in part to investigations surrounding Yoon’s conservative allies.

Lee spoke through an interpreter, breaking the pace of Trump, who does not hesitate to pick fights with his guests.
Trump, who frequently accuses European allies of freeloading off the United States, made clear he would press hard for greater compensation by South Korea over the 28,500 US troops in the country.
He suggested the United States could seek to take over base land, an idea likely to enrage Lee’s brethren on the South Korean left.
“We spent a lot of money building a fort, and there was a contribution made by South Korea, but I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease and get ownership of the land where we have a massive military base,” Trump said.
He also spoke bluntly about one of South Korea’s most delicate issues: so-called “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery during Japan’s 1910-1945 rule.
The South Korean left has historically been outspoken about Japan’s legacy, although Lee visited Tokyo on his way to Washington, a highly symbolic stop praised by Trump.
Japan had agreed to compensate comfort women but the deal was criticized by survivors who questioned Tokyo’s sincerity.
 

 


Indonesian police clash with protesters against parliamentarians’ salaries

Updated 25 August 2025
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Indonesian police clash with protesters against parliamentarians’ salaries

  • Protesters marched through the streets around the parliament building, calling for a salary cut for parliamentarians

JAKARTA: Police fired tear gas and used a water cannon to push back hundreds of demonstrators trying to break into Indonesia’s parliament building on Monday to protest against what they called excessive pay and perks for legislators, witnesses said.

Some protesters, clad in dark clothing, threw rocks and set off fireworks at riot police in the capital Jakarta.

At least one motorcycle was set ablaze by protesters.

Protesters marched through the streets around the parliament building, calling for a salary cut for parliamentarians, according to a press release by Gejayan Memanggil, one of the groups organizing the protest formed by students in the Yogyakarta province.

This month, local media reported parliamentarians were paid upwards of 100 million rupiah ($6,150) a month, including a substantial housing allowance. While Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest economy, that remuneration is far above the average income in the archipelago of 3.1 million rupiah.

Demonstrators also protested against what they termed policies that benefit conglomerates and the military, the press release said.

Some were seen on television footage carrying a flag from the Japanese manga series “One Piece,” which has become a symbol of protest against government policies in the country.

Jakarta police spokesperson Ade Ary Syam Indradi told reporters 1,250 police personnel were deployed to maintain security around the building.

The parliament’s speaker and deputy speakers of parliament, as well as a spokesperson for Prabowo, did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Parliament speaker Puan Maharani told local media she would accommodate all aspirations from the public.


Norway teen suspected of terrorism after social worker murder

Updated 25 August 2025
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Norway teen suspected of terrorism after social worker murder

  • In 2011, right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them youths, by setting off a van bomb outside the government offices in Oslo and then opening fire at a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utoya
  • Norwegian media reported the suspect planned to attack a mosque, but the prosecutor did not confirm this

OSLO: An 18-year-old Norwegian is suspected of terrorism after the murder of a social worker in Oslo which may have been racially-motivated, authorities said Monday.
The woman, who worked in a home helping integrate vulnerable young people into society, was killed overnight Saturday to Sunday at her workplace. According to media, she was stabbed to death.
Lawyers representing the family identified the victim as 34-year-old Tamima Nibras Juhar, born in Ethiopia.
The suspect, a resident at the home, was arrested in Oslo after the attack and has admitted to playing a role in the murder, police said.
Police said Monday the preliminary charges against the suspect had been expanded to include terrorism.
“During his interrogation, he also said he planned to hurt several people,” deputy prosecutor Philip Green said.
“At this stage, we believe he planned to spread terror among part of the population and that’s why he is now the subject of a terrorism investigation,” Green said.
According to the prosecutor, the suspect “expressed hostile opinions toward Muslim people.”
Norwegian media reported the suspect planned to attack a mosque, but the prosecutor did not confirm this.
The teen, who is believed to have acted alone, was to appear before a judge before being placed in detention.
Norway has seen several far-right attacks.
In 2011, right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them youths, by setting off a van bomb outside the government offices in Oslo and then opening fire at a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utoya.
In August 2019, Philip Manshaus opened fire in a mosque on Oslo’s outskirts before being overpowered. No one was seriously hurt, but before the attack he killed his adopted Asian half-sister in a racially-motivated act.
Both men were sentenced to 21-year prison sentences, which can be extended as long as they are considered a risk to society.