No Military ID Cards or Combatant Status: Bureaucratic and Corruption-Related Obstacles for Foreign Defenders 

Despite orders from the Ministry of Defense, foreign volunteers do not even receive a military ID card, let alone other benefits and rights. Lera Burlakova, a Ukrainian veteran and journalist, spoke about this during a briefing at the Ukraine Media Center.

“The entire army is switching to the ‘Army+’ app, but foreign volunteers do not have this right. Even despite the Ministry of Defense’s order—to issue paper ID cards during the transition period—foreign volunteers are not receiving them,” she says.

According to Lera Burlakova, foreign volunteers are also not granted combatant status. Moreover, some brigades are charging fees for this status: “Two volunteers each paid 25,000 hryvnias twice because they were told at brigade headquarters that this was what they had to do.”

The veteran does not blame the brigades, but she argues that such obstacles force foreign volunteers to give up their service: “Foreign volunteers with combat experience will simply return home and speak poorly of our country.”

Volunteer soldiers present at the briefing note that they were promised military ID cards immediately after training, but even after participating in combat operations, they have not received them.

“Even though we joined the army in 2023, most of my unit—and we fought on the front lines for a year, sustaining multiple injuries—never received military ID cards, awards for our injuries, or combat veteran status. I even had to pay twice for combat veteran status, but I still didn’t get it. Now I want to join another unit, but without the proper documents, that’s a problem,” said one of the foreign volunteers.

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news