More than 500 Indians including retired army personnel have volunteered to join Ukraine’s International Legion. This comes to claim after The Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian media outlet shared a photo of foreign volunteers who have already joined the Ukrainian ground force. The volunteers are mainly from the US, UK, Mexico, Lithuania and India.
More about the Legion
Ukraine’s’ international legion, a unit created on the request of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by the Ukrainian Government, is a territorial defence legion that seeks applications from foreign nationals to fight against the Russian invasion.
A separate website (fightforua.org) was launched to receive applications from across the globe.
The foreign minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba informed that within eleven days of existence the website received more than 20,000 volunteer applicants from 52 different countries. He said in a TV address,
“The whole world today is on Ukraine’s side not only in words but in deeds.”
Media reports from Ukraine had stated specifically that 3000 applicants were from America alone. Also, one Indian has been reported to have joined the Ukrainian Ground Forces.
Joining Process
It has come to the information that mere applying for volunteering does not guarantee inclusion in the Ukrainian Ground Force.
The selection process is long and includes legislation criteria along with other modalities of the respective countries from where the applicant is. While the final decision is taken by the Ukrainian Government.
The selection criteria mentioned having prior military or medical experience and require the applicants to submit documents as proof to the Ministry of Defence Official at the Ukrainian Embassy for the same.
The volunteers are not required to bring out their weapons. Most of the volunteers who had applied and reached L’viv were accepted.
World response
The Ukrainian International Defence Legion has garnered mixed responses from the world. There are countries like the Czech Republic which provides immunity to its citizen for having joined the legion.
There are others in plenty which includes Denmark, Cambodia, Australia etc., that had asked its citizen not to join the legion.
While there’s also a third lot of countries like France, Germany, Canada which has taken a neutral stand by stating that they would not prevent the interested volunteers to join the Ukrainian Legion, while they have not commented anything on facilitating the travel.
Irakli Okruashvili, former Georgian Defence Minister along with some volunteers has already joined the Ukrainian Ground Force.
Legal aspect in India
As per reports, many Indians including veterans have signed up for the International Legion of Ukraine.
However, there remains an Indian Domestic Law that makes this act an offence. Under Section 121-130 (Chapter VI) of the Indian Penal Code, preparing to commit depredation on the territories of any Power in alliance at peace with India is punishable a crime which may include imprisonment of up to seven years.
India is at peace with Russia. Hence Indian nationals applying to fight against Russia becomes an act of crime as per the Indian domestic laws.
This law is invoked when the foreign army in which the Indian nationals are joining indulges in doing things that may cause an adversary to India. This draws parallels to the efforts of Indian Nationals to join ISIS in Syria which was prevented by the Indian Government.
While the war is still going on, recent reports have established that efforts are being made by the west to facilitate Ukraine in this hour crisis.
UNSC special session on Monday mentioned that there are almost 1.7 million migrations from Ukraine alone, erupting the largest Humanitarian Crisis in recent times.
Though India has officially abstained to vote against Russia in the UN, it’s trying its best to mediate between Ukraine and Russia while assuring the Indian students get a safe refuge passage for the way back home.
Published By: Manan Khurana
Edited By: Subbuthai Padma
