Foreign legion

• Ground raids in the Belgorod region of Russia, adjacent to the north-eastern frontier of Ukraine, appear to have upped the ante.
• It creates legal complications in international humanitarian law (IHL) that will be difficult to untangle unless responsibility for the operations can be definitively attributed.

Who is involved

• The incursions have been carried out, according to Ukrainian officials, by two separate groups of Russian citizens.
• These are the Freedom of Russia Legion (FRL) and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC).
• Its status is unclear when it comes to the group’s relationship with Ukraine’s military command and control.
• The answers to these questions determine whether captured fighters are protected under IHL, and who will be held accountable for their actions.

Irregular fighters and international law

• The participation of irregular units in armed conflict has been a persistent feature of warfare since at least the Peninsular War (1808-1814).
• The development of international law to reflect this reality of modern warfare was further spurred by the French use of francs-tireurs (literally, “free-shooters”) in occupied areas of north-eastern France during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871).
• In the second Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902), meanwhile, the entire army of the Boer republics consisted of irregular farmers who were mobilised into kommandos to resist the British invasion.
• This defines entitlement after capture to the rights and protections of prisoners of war (POWs).
• A notable feature of that conflict had been the activities of armed resistance movements in occupied territory.
• And if the FRL has been incorporated into the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, as has been reported, its fighters should be considered part of the Ukrainian armed forces.
• Because they come under the IHL definition of combatants, they should be protected from being treated as saboteurs after capture, which carries a heavy penalty under Russian law.