Ukraine is paying big to get foreign fighters to the front. Keeping them there is the hard part.
Ukraine is paying big to get foreign fighters to the front. Keeping them there is the hard part.
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Ukraine is offering foreign fighters higher pay and longer contracts for dangerous front-line roles.
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Soldiers told Business Insider that the move could help address a major manpower challenge.
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However, success will depend on whether Kyiv can not only recruit troops, but also retain them.
Ukraine is offering foreign fighters higher pay and longer fixed-term contracts to fill dangerous front-line infantry and assault roles, a move soldiers say could help address one of Kyiv’s biggest manpower problems.
However, foreign fighters told Business Insider that the effort’s success will depend on whether Ukraine can persuade recruits to stay longer rather than leaving right after hitting the six-month minimum.
“More guys will come for the money, obviously,” said Ryan O’Leary, the company commander of Chosen, a volunteer unit in Ukraine. However, he said it won’t automatically fix the country’s manpower issues because Kyiv still has a “revolving door” of foreigners leaving after short contracts.
Ukraine announced a significant overhaul of its compensation for military personnel last month, with officials laying out an ambitious plan for higher pay, more combat bonuses, and longer fixed-term contracts.
The combat pay plan includes new contracts of six to 14 months for infantry and assault troops, with service members eligible for an average monthly pay of UAH 300,000 (nearly $7,000) and a maximum of UAH 460,000 (over $10,000), depending on the number of days at the front lines.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister, described them as the “highest salaries in the world for infantry,” calling these front-line roles the “most difficult and risky job” right now. He said the goal is to fill 30-50% of these positions with foreigners.
These jobs can be some of the deadliest. Front-line positions are often described as kill zones, the threat of drones making it hard not only to survive but even to get there in the first place. Pay can be a strong motivation, though.
“We see now that a large number of foreigners are coming to Ukraine to fight, because today’s salary is already attracting them,” Fedorov said last month. “If we’re talking about an increase, then this will attract even more foreigners, and then they will be able to strengthen our front line.”
O’Leary said the higher pay and longer contracts could help if they push foreign fighters to stay for a year or more. The problem, he said, is that many of them have historically treated six months as the endpoint, leaving Ukraine with little return on the time and money spent training and equipping the soldiers.
By the time a recruit finishes basic training and reaches a combat unit, a short six-month contract may have only a few weeks remaining for front-line operations, he said. That makes having longer contract options key, but only if Ukraine can give fighters a compelling enough reason to choose it.
‘You need to pay’
Foreign volunteers have flocked to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with many driven to the fight by ideological or political reasons — a sense of duty to protect a nation attacked by its much larger neighbor — rather than financial incentives.
However, the situation changed as the war dragged on, said Kante, a foreign fighter who asked to be identified by his call sign for security reasons.
He said that there are fewer “motivated foreign fighters,” adding that many of these volunteers have been killed in combat or left, and Ukraine must now fill those vacancies. Now, volunteers are increasingly joining for financial reasons.
Ukraine is no longer competing only for idealists; it is also competing in a global market for experienced fighters.
“If you want guys, you need to pay,” he said.
Kante, who has served in infantry and assault roles for Ukraine, said that the pay needs to be competitive with what experienced fighters can make in other conflicts, such as a former South American officer familiar with battling rebels weighing a contract in a place like Sudan.
Ukrainian military personnel view the new contracts as a positive for Kyiv. Yuriy, an officer in an electronic warfare unit who could only be identified by his first name, described the push for foreign fighters as “one of the best solutions” to address manpower challenges.
“I think it’s just a solution to fill the gaps,” said Alex, a sergeant in Ukraine’s 412th “Nemesis” Unmanned Systems Brigade. He could only be identified by his first name for security reasons.
Alex said Ukrainians who were “brave enough” had already joined the military earlier in the war and are either exhausted or hurt. Newly mobilized personnel, he said, may not be as willing to risk their lives.
Improving returns on investment
Kyiv’s push for foreign fighters comes as its military faces a grinding, attritional manpower problem more than four years into the Russian invasion. Infantry and assault troops are among the most battered forces on the battlefield, and Ukraine has struggled to keep front-line units staffed as the war has dragged on.
The new contracts with a promise of bigger payouts could give Ukraine a way to bring in more foreign fighters and keep them longer. Foreign troops said that the test is whether the higher pay and clearer terms are enough to persuade recruits to choose a longer contract rather than leave after six months.
Despite the push for recruits, foreign fighters said that sustaining the current force should be Ukraine’s priority.
O’Leary, the Chosen commander, said many foreign fighters sign a six-month contract and then either return home or move to another unit, leaving Ukraine with little to show for the investment.
He described the revolving door as a “negative for Ukraine” and said the country should prioritize retention alongside recruitment.
Deeper issues often push foreign fighters to leave the war after six months, O’Leary said, including limited access to Ukraine’s digital military systems and fewer day-to-day benefits. Fixing those problems, he said, might matter more to retention than higher pay.
“They’ve already fixed the permanent residency and the citizenship stuff, so I think that’s one movement forward,” he said, adding that Kyiv now needs “to work on just leveling the playing field for foreigners so it seems like we’re on the same page as the Ukrainians.”
Ukraine’s defense ministry said it isn’t currently in a position to comment on these efforts. Overall, foreign fighters said that Ukraine is moving in the right direction with talent retention.
Charlie, a US military veteran and current candidate for Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, said that the new contracts and payments are “positive steps” from Kyiv toward incentivizing foreign fighters to stay longer. He asked to be identified by his call sign for security reasons.
“I think they’re doing a good thing by understanding that they have this foreign demographic from all over the world that’s coming into the country and bolstering their military, and they’re actually doing things to incentivize people to come — incentivize people to stay — not just to do minimum six months and leave,” Charlie said.
He said the longer contracts might be most appealing to foreign fighters who come to Ukraine for combat experience that they won’t find on any other battlefield.
“If you look at the world right now,” Charlie said, “the best place to get that experience is in Ukraine as a foreigner.”
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