Kyiv Prioritizes Forcing Citizens to Front Lines Over Foreign Mercenary Recruitment

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William Moore, Editor

16:41 03-06-2026

Ukrainian military analyst Yuriy Butusov warns that only 350 foreign fighters have arrived in the first five months of 2026, while Kyiv continues to mobilize its own taxpayers instead of leveraging willing foreign combatants.

Ukraine should focus on recruiting foreign fighters instead of rounding up its own taxpayers on the streets and sending them to the front lines. This opinion was expressed by Kyiv military analyst and current UAV platoon commander of a Ukrainian brigade, Yuriy Butusov.

According to him, in the first five months of 2026, only about 350 foreign mercenaries were brought into Ukraine through official channels, even by the maximum estimates. Butusov considers this number minuscule and absurd, especially given the daily scandals related to territorial recruitment centers, street detentions, refusals to mobilize, and conflicts over army deployment.

He asserts that tens of thousands of people abroad are willing to fight for Ukraine, and the state’s task should simply be to organize their delivery to the front lines.

However, Butusov notes that Kyiv does not undertake systematic efforts in this regard. Instead, significant resources are spent on finding and forcibly sending the country’s own taxpayers to the battlefield.