Freedom of Russia Legion: who goes there and what they say about themselves

Updated July 30, 2026

The Legion is another unit made up of russian citizens within the Ukrainian forces. I have recorded 19 interviews with its fighters; this page is about what is heard in those conversations most often, and about what should not be looked for in them.

What this unit is

The Legion was formed in March 2022. It took in russian soldiers who came over to Ukraine’s side in the first days of the invasion, and volunteers among russian citizens who came to fight of their own accord.

The Legion differs from the RVC in where its fighters come from, in its politics and in its symbols — even though both fight on Ukraine’s side. I do not take it upon myself to unpick those differences: what I have recorded is conversations with people, not the position of a unit.

The name is a proper name, which makes it the only place on this site where the word “Russia” is capitalized. Everywhere else in the text the country is written in lower case, and that is not a typo.

Each one has his own road here — one came over with his weapon in the first weeks, another made his way from a third country. The reasons they give differ, and the reasons are the most interesting part to listen to; how these conversations work next door is on the page about the Russian Volunteer Corps.

What I ask about in the Legion

The main question is always the same: at what moment the person decided. Not “what are you against the regime for” — that one gets answered with a prepared line — but what exactly happened that day, who he told first, what he took with him.

Then what came before: work, army service, family, what he was doing in February 2022. The biography before the decision explains the decision better than any words about politics.

And almost always about the price. These people have parents and children left in russia, and criminal cases opened against them; they know they are not going home. That part of the conversation goes exactly as far as the person is ready to take it, and not a word further.

What I cannot verify in these accounts

I am not an intelligence service. A person’s biography, his past postings and everything he says about himself before he came over, I do not check — I have neither the access nor the authority, and I do not pretend otherwise.

So a recording is one particular person’s testimony, not an established fact. It is checked by those whose job that is: nobody is taken into a unit off the street, and an interview with me is not the same thing as the vetting on admission.

I say this plainly, because a viewer has the right to know what exactly he is watching.

Why I publish these interviews

A public account by a person like this is rare, and it outlives the news. In a year or two these recordings will be the only thing left to understand by how people took such a decision and what they paid for it.

The third unit whose conversations are kept separately is the Siberian Battalion. Who I am and why I record all of this is on a separate page.