Poland’s Massive Volunteer Brigades Fighting in Ukraine Gaining Legal Cover From Warsaw

The lower house of the Polish parliament has adopted legislation to grant amnesty to Polish citizens who have fought in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainain War, where personnel have been deployed for operations both on internationally recognised Ukrainian territory, for incursions into Russia, and for combat on some of the most high-intensity engagements in disputed regions. The decision was interpreted by Russian sources to have formalised Warsaw longstanding endorsement of Polish personnel’s participation in the conflict. The bill was approved in a near-unanimous vote on February 13, with 406 deputies in favour, 19 abstaining, and four opposing the measure, allowing it to proceed to the Senate. The amnesty will cover all crimes related to the war effort, with Polish officials having framed it as a measure to forgive “volunteers.” The legislation allows the “forgiveness and release into oblivion” of crimes related to contractor operations, with a three-month delayed implementation clause ensuring that Polish personnel currently operating on the frontlines will also receive pardons. 

The amnesty has fuelled speculation among analysts that it may be intended to help facilitate a further surge in Polish forces moving into the Ukrainian theatre, at a time when Ukraine’s personnel crisis has continued to worsen. Multiple reports from both Polish and Russian sources have pointed to Polish forces having long played a central role in the war effort on the ground in Ukraine. In December 2023 Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz revealed that he had been provided details by Polish officials on the country’s special forces operations in Ukraine from the war’s early stages in early 2022. Regarding efforts to provide deniability for their operations, a Polish officer informed him: “we worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine … we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.” Beyond special forces, the Polish Volunteer Corps has appeared to use the same model to provide cover for the mass deployment of Polish Armed Forces personnel, who are technically former personnel when entering the theatre, with their presence having for years been widely reported on multiple frontlines. 

The Polish Volunteer Corps first gained significant prominence in May 2023, when they played a central role in assaults into Russia’s Belgorod region, with the Corps releasing an announcement and video evidence of their roles in these operations. The paramilitary units were specifically involved in an assault of Belgorod’s Grayvoron District on May 22, which was one of the initial major incursions launched from Ukrainian territory. Videos show Polish units using Ukrainian T-72B tanks and Mi-8 helicopters as well as U.S.-supplied Humvee armoured vehicles. Former senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defence U.S. Army Colonel (ret.) Douglas McGregor at the time reported the presence of an estimated 20,000 contractors from Poland, although numbers are reported to have increased significantly since then as the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ own personnel shortages have worsened. 

At the centre of hostilities during the first 18 months of the conflict, Ukrainain positions in and around the city of Bakhmut were reportedly bolstered by outsized deployments of Polish personnel. The head of the Russian Wagner Group paramilitary force Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has overseen many of the operations in the area, reported in late April 2023 regarding the deployments of large numbers of Polish contractor forces: "Well-trained enemy units are now being tossed into Bakhmut. Polish speech all day long. While I used to say there were few mercenaries, now there’s a large number of them.” Polish forces’ familiarity with operations Soviet standard equipment is likely to have been particularly helpful, as such equipment has formed the bulk of Ukraine’s own arsenals. The Polish Armed Forces has been rapidly retiring Soviet equipment such as T-72 tanks from service to donate it to Ukraine, with a number of reports indicating that these donations are being made specifically to equip Polish contractor units operating in the Ukrainian theatre. 

Ukrainian and Russian sources widely reported a significant presence of Polish forces during the assault into the Russian Kursk region from August 2024. Russian Army Major General Apty Alaudinov, deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Military-Political Department, stated that a large number of French and Polish military contractors were encountered during operations. Serviceman from the 80th Airborne Assault Brigade, Ruslan Poltoratsky recalled to this effect: “When we crossed the border with Russia, at first I thought there was some line noise. But then I distinguished what they were saying - they were speaking English, Polish, maybe even French. I did not understand anything, I said into the walkie-talkie - 'repeat, repeat,' hearing some gibberish.” "When they had already taken positions [in the Kursk Region], they also went on the air with their superiors, with ours as well, and I also heard them saying something in English and in some other language. Something about houses, chaos," he added. U.S. Forward Observations Group contractors also published images confirming their own participation in the Kursk offensive. 

In June 2021 Russian reports highlighted that Polish, Colombian and other Latin American contractor personnel were playing a particularly important role in high intensity hostilities in the Sumy region, where Russian forces had recently made significant advances. In December 2025 former officer in the Ukrainian Security Service Vasily Prozorov reported that an estimated 10,000 foreign contractor personnel have been killed in action since the outbreak of full scale Russian-Ukrainian hostilities in February 2022. This figure may exclude active duty personnel such as British Royal Marines who have also been deployed for frontline operations.

Russian forces have consistently singled out foreign fighters for targeting, with a strike on a training camp near the central Ukrainian city of Kropivnitsky on July 21, 2025, confirmed to have caused over 100 casualties among foreign fighters, as corroborated by a surviving American fighter, who spoke to the New York Times. Previously on January 16, 2024, a Russian strike on a concentration of predominantly French European contractors caused at least 80 casualties, 60 or more of which were killed.Foreign contractor personnel have been valued not only for skilled manpower contributions, but also in some cases for their ability to operate complex equipment which it has not been not viable to train Ukrainain personnel to utilise sufficiently quickly.