I’m deeply skeptical that this is a good action for anyone who isn’t personally tied to Ukraine. Foreigners fighting is a substantial propaganda boost for Putin (“Look, Ukraine is a Western stooge after all”) and risks muddying the water around whether or not the nation they are from is at war with Russia, potentially spiralling the conflict. NATO is holding off doing any act tantamount to declaring war for a reason. Ukrainians have the benefit of local geographic knowledge, being trusted by the community and speaking the co-ordinating languages; what they lack is high-tech military equipment. As you can probably tell, my skepticism also includes people who DO have military training, as this exacerbates the risk of it being perceived as state-sponsored assistance, even if these people are more useful militarily. I’m more sympathetic towards volunteers that have medical training and are going in a strictly non-combat facility.
This info was not present at the time I wrote this reply. As you say, most of this doesn’t apply in the case of Russians, but it seems unwise to even discuss the optimal actions for Russians in a non-anonymised public chat.
I’m deeply skeptical that this is a good action for anyone who isn’t personally tied to Ukraine. Foreigners fighting is a substantial propaganda boost for Putin (“Look, Ukraine is a Western stooge after all”) and risks muddying the water around whether or not the nation they are from is at war with Russia, potentially spiralling the conflict. NATO is holding off doing any act tantamount to declaring war for a reason. Ukrainians have the benefit of local geographic knowledge, being trusted by the community and speaking the co-ordinating languages; what they lack is high-tech military equipment. As you can probably tell, my skepticism also includes people who DO have military training, as this exacerbates the risk of it being perceived as state-sponsored assistance, even if these people are more useful militarily. I’m more sympathetic towards volunteers that have medical training and are going in a strictly non-combat facility.
Please note that if Putin wants to say “Ukraine is a Western stooge after all”, he will say that whether there are 20 foreign fighters or 200,000.
But he did say his friends were Russian, which might negate this argument? (Not sure if they have other nationalities though)
This info was not present at the time I wrote this reply. As you say, most of this doesn’t apply in the case of Russians, but it seems unwise to even discuss the optimal actions for Russians in a non-anonymised public chat.