Three foreign nationals who traveled to Ukraine to fight Russian forces were killed in recent days.
Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, an American, had been working for a private military contracting company in Ukraine since March 12 or 13, and he was killed in fighting on Monday. Scott Sibley, a former British soldier, was identified as the British civilian who had been killed in Ukraine, while the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office confirmed that one British national had been killed and another is missing, according to the Guardian.
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“We can confirm that a British national has been killed in Ukraine, and we are supporting their family,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said. “We are urgently seeking further information.”
A 25-year-old Danish man, whose identity has not been publicly identified, was killed in Mykolajiv earlier this week while fighting with the International Legion Ukraine, which is a unit for foreign fighters, the Danish broadcaster TV2 reported, according to the Associated Press.
The Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen could not confirm his death, blaming it in part on the “extremely difficult conditions” of the war.
Thousands of foreign fighters have sought to join Ukraine’s military as it fights off Russia’s invasion. Shortly after the war broke out, Ukraine sent out a global call to arms seeking foreign fighters for the war effort. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March that at least 16,000 had signed up to join International Legion Ukraine.
The Pentagon did not have details to add to Cancel’s death, though spokesman John Kirby expressed his condolences and reiterated his message that Americans should not go overseas to fight in Ukraine.
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“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, when a devastating piece of news that has to be for them for anybody to lose a son, a brother. That’s got to be painful,” he said in a Friday interview on CNN. “This is an active war zone. This is not the place to be traveling to. I understand his altruistic motives. I do. I respect that. But this is not the place for Americans to go. If you want to support Ukraine, there are any number of other ways to do this in a safe, effective way.”
