On the evening before Russian forces crossed the border into Ukraine, Igor Volzhanin met up with a friend at a coffee shop at the centre of Kyiv.
"We stayed there until about midnight just talking,” the Canadian recalled in an interview from Ukraine. “Just talking about how, you know, jokingly, what would we do if the war had started. There was deep anxiety, but I don't think either one of us really expected for it to happen the next morning."
"I felt it was the right thing to do,” he said. “When the war started, there was an option to leave the country. There was a car waiting for me, essentially. And I felt … I was born in Ukraine. So, this is my home in a way, and I felt that I wanted to defend it." He likened the legion to a "startup" — in a “positive sense” — in which he began at the ground level to get things up and running.
“They're just being careful to make sure that they have the right people,” he said. “That's been stressed over and over that these need to be people that really have combat experience, and that a proper interview and vetting process takes place.” “None of those actually ended up, from what I know, to be correct,” he said. “And hopefully that will continue being the case. But those that will eventually be heading in, that is a real possibility.”
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