Battalion "Siberia": Russian volunteers against the war in Ukraine (video)

The Sibir battalion has appeared in Ukraine, consisting of Russian citizens who want to fight against the invasion of their country.

Bloomberg tells, that the new battalion includes sixty Russians and representatives of ethnic minorities from Russia. They came to Ukraine through third countries. Their number is increasing, there may be more of them.

This is not a volunteer group like the Russian Freedom Legion – these soldiers are part of the regular Ukrainian army and are expected to be sent into battle very soon. In particular, the Yakuts and Buryats will fight for the Armed Forces of Ukraine: they want independence of their regions from Russia and consider Ukraine’s victory as a step towards this goal. A 29-year-old Yakut with the call sign Vargan says:

“We need to destroy the Kremlin regime. I want Yakutia to be a free democratic country, it is a very rich country, but the people are so poor. Only government officials who serve Putin prosper.”

A Ukrainian instructor with the call sign Batya, who trains Siberian fighters, said in an interview with Bloomberg:

“If people want to fight for Ukraine, for our borders, for the collapse of this Russian Soviet regime, why not? … This is their choice, and it shows that not all Russians support Putin.”

There are no prisoners of war in the battalion, there are only volunteers. When joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russians underwent a “thorough check” regarding their support for Ukraine, which lasted more than a year. Ukraine plans to speed up this process in order to attract more Russians, writes edition “Country”.

A Russian from the Moscow region with the call sign Gandhi said that he left the Russian Federation shortly after the invasion in February 2022 and came to Ukraine through Poland “to fight the crimes committed by my country.” He chose his nickname, associated with the leader of Indian pacifists, because he opposes violence, but “I have the right to protect the lives of other people,” Bloomberg reports him as saying.

Another volunteer is Martin, a 29-year-old engineer from Moscow who worked in IT but came to Ukraine in the summer. According to him, his family does not know where he is “for their safety.”

According to various sources, several hundred Russian citizens are fighting in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and their number is growing every day.

The existence of the Legion “Freedom of Russia” became known in the spring of 2023. It allegedly consists of captured Russian soldiers who decided to go over to the side of Ukraine, as well as volunteers with a Russian passport. By that time, the Legion already numbered half a thousand fighters.

The second association is the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK). The unit was officially registered with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in August, although the idea of ​​creating it appeared immediately after the Russian invasion in February 2022. In its public pages, RDK reports on the right-wing conservative views of all its fighters. Note that both battalions have political representation.

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