Over past year, Ukraine has managed to bring in around 3,000 foreign volunteers, whilst there is a waiting list of tens of thousands of applicants, – Butusov. VIDEO
In 2026, Ukraine managed to bring in around 3,000 foreign volunteers, whilst tens of thousands more are still waiting in line.
This was stated by Yurii Butusov, commander of the UAV company of the 23rd Assault Regiment within the 2nd Corps of the National Guard "Khartiia", during an appearance on the programme "Rendezvous" hosted by journalist Yanina Sokolova, reports Censor.NET.
Queues of applicants
"A year has passed. During this time, through joint efforts — mainly funded by businesspeople and partly by the state — we will have brought in around 3,000 foreigners by the end of the year, whereas last year 2,500 foreigners were brought in. This is despite the fact that there are queues of tens of thousands," said the military officer.
According to the commander, as of now, for the whole of 2026, the "Khartiia" Corps has not received a single hryvnia of targeted funding from the state for recruiting foreigners. He noted that the process of recruiting foreigners is being sustained by private funds from businessmen and the initiative of Hamlet Avagyan, commander of the R.U.G. assault regiment within the 2nd ‘Khartiia’ Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine.
"We have a waiting list of 5,000 people from several countries and we cannot take them on at the moment because we lack systematic funding," said Butusov.
The state is spending resources on forced ‘recruitment’ instead of attracting foreigners
The military official emphasised that instead of recruiting motivated foreign volunteers for pay, the state is spending resources on the forced mobilisation of civilians.
"We are allocating such staggering sums to round up people on the streets – taxpayers – and take them out of the economy; in other words, we are losing the money they pay into the budget and weakening businesses that lose staff in this way. In other words, it is inflicting serious damage on our own economy and our own society, yet not a single penny has been allocated a year on since we started talking about this and lobbying for it. The ‘R.U.G.’ assault unit, formed as part of the ‘Khartiia’, has been delivering results for a year now: enemy forces eliminated, trophies and prisoners of war. Nothing is prompting the state to take swift action. No, better to focus on the daily scandals surrounding the ‘packing’ of the TCR. Better to deal with that, to allocate money to training centres – from which half of those who arrive end up leaving – but not on foreigners. This remains a personal, private matter for individual units. Such is our logic, unfortunately – the flawed logic of state planning, a complete lack of attention to recruitment. Everything is done in words. Verbal promises, but no decisions or money to back up those words are forthcoming," said Butusov.
