Carolus Löfroos: Vapaaehtoiset – Sotamme Ukrainassa 2014-2015

Note: The book is in Finnish.

The 2014 Ukrainian Revolution led to the occupation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine. The young Finnish-Swedish Carolus Löfroos could not stand by and watch Russia’s aggression from the sidelines. He travelled to Kyiv and joined the Azov volunteer battalion. He became part of a “foreign platoon,” whose members had come from around the world to defend Ukraine.

Löfroos’s book is a detailed account of his own military expedition and of the foreign volunteers who served in eastern Ukraine. It is a straightforward, unvarnished, and at times anarchically funny description of what the bitter war fought on Europe’s borderlands looked like in its first years. With photographic precision, Löfroos describes the everyday life of a volunteer soldier, including training exercises, his eccentric comrades-in-arms, and the battles fought against Russian and separatist forces.

The work also offers a perspective on the controversial Azov Battalion, which, having grown to regimental strength, has become a significant force in Ukraine’s current war. Azov soldiers captured the city of Mariupol from rebel forces in 2014 and defended it against Russian besieging forces under extreme conditions for nearly three months in 2022.

Paperback, 436 pages.