Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper brings the stories of mobilization of five foreign fighters from five different countries who mobilized at different times over the development and duration of the Russo-Ukrainian war: from its onset in 2014 through to the full scale Russian invasion in February 2022. Founded upon an original dataset gathered using ethnographic methods, this article brings a unique account of individual motivations into the literature on foreign fighters in the Russian-Ukrainian war, specifically those who mobilized on the Ukrainian side. It focuses on the respondents’ individual frames, namely values and beliefs in explaining not only why they decided to fight and risk their lives in a foreign war but it also accounts for the chronology of foreign participation, recruitment process, and mobilizing structures that enabled and accommodated foreign fighters mobilization since 2014. The key mobilizing factor was Russian violence against Ukraine, and the threat it poses to the freedom of Ukraine and Europe.
Published Version
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