Zelensky looks abroad for new legions of compatriots to send to the front
...while Czech citizen is brought to court in Czech Republic on looting charges in Bucha (Ukraine).
A few days ago, Volodymyr Zelensky, on a visit to Warsaw prior to his trip to Washington DC for the NATO summit, announced the formation of a Ukrainian legion designed for Ukrainian volunteers living abroad. Poland has promised to equip and train the volunteers who will then return home to fight.
Yesterday (11th July 2024), just three days after the announcement, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that “several thousand people have already applied to join the Ukrainian Legion in Poland”, as per Ukrainska Pravda.
This sounds quite strange, considering that the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens in Poland arrived there in the first place precisely to avoid the call to arms, often bribing border guards with large sums of money or risking their lives.
The Polish Foreign Minister also claims that “if every European country had done the same [i.e. created such legions], Ukraine would have several more brigades today”. It is hard to imagine that Sikorski does not know that for Ukrainians the problem lies in leaving the country and not in returning. Those who wanted to join the army voluntarily did so long ago.
Who then is this new Ukrainian Legion aimed at? Will the volunteers who will take part in it really be “volunteers”? For a long time, the Ukrainian military leadership has been wondering how to bring back those fellow citizens who fled the country by evading military service. Kiev is in dire need of soldiers to send into the trenches: it can count on continued Western support in terms of ammunition and weapons, but the prospect of seeing regular foreign troops on Ukrainian soil is still a long way off. The creation of structures such as these, through which Ukrainian citizens of draft age could be directed, in agreement with European countries, could be a solution to this problem.
Meanwhile, in Czech Republic, Filip Siman has been brought to court on looting charges in Bucha (Ukraine), as reported by České Noviny.
The defendant, who faces 20 years in prison for illegal conscription and looting in a war zone, did not fight under the Russian flag, but in the ranks of the Ukrainian army. A necessary premise and clarification, because Bucha has been talked about so much and in a one-sided way in order to demonise the Russian army.
Filip Siman, a citizen of the Czech Republic, travelled to Kiev to join the ranks of Zelensky's army soon after the start of the Russian offensive. Siman believes that - at the time - his own government had extensively incited support for Ukraine, several politicians had also promised impunity for those on the front line.
After arriving in Ukraine, he enlisted in the “Karpatska Sich” unit, ending up in Irpin and Bucha to carry out clearance and patrol operations, immediately after the withdrawal of Russian troops from those areas.
Once back home, Siman was accused of looting an (unspecified) amount of cash, silver bullion, jewellery and a pair of Gucci glasses, loot allegedly stolen during the war operations from civilian homes and corpses. The 27-year-old denies the charges, stating that he never pursued the goal of getting rich with his actions, although he himself filmed these deeds. He had also bragged about this to a journalist, but then claimed that the conversation should have remained confidential and that he had invented everything to make himself more interesting.
Simon recounted that at the time, all Ukrainian units were stationed in houses in Bucha and Irpin, and consequently it was common practice for soldiers to use the resources they found inside. Valuables such as money or electronics - according to him - were taken to headquarters for fear that Russian soldiers might return and then take possession of them.
According to Siman, the Ukrainian commanders authorised him to keep the “spoils of war” consisting of jewellery and silver bars, but he would only take a photo on his phone, taking only a ring.