“European” fighters. It's not just in Syria. In Ukraine too….
(BRUSSELS2) It is a phenomenon, for the moment, less massive and more discreet than the "foreign" (= "European") fighters who left to fight with Daesh or the other separatist movements in Syria and Iraq. But a flow exists, as evidenced by this testimony collected by our colleagues Aurélie Didier and Garry Wantiez, from the RTBF in Donetsk. Two Frenchmen thus went over to the pro-Russian side, via Moscow and Rostov-sur-le-Don.
Erwan is a former soldier. He is still waiting for instructions and hopes to work in intelligence and be assigned to a battalion. " When freedom is in danger, it is a duty for the peoples concerned to defend themselves. Even at the cost of war does he think.
Cécile is 30 years old and is a nurse. She will be assigned to the hospital at the center of Donetsk in the department of thoracic surgery. " I think it is here that the civilian victims are best taken care of, it is the republic of Donetsk which organizes the humanitarian corridors explains this Frenchwoman to our two Belgian colleagues. " LEurope is currently represented by an elite in Brussels that is a slave to the United States. I think that the majority of the European people feel more represented by Russia, which defends more the values of national sovereignty. »
A move to watch?
Examples like this are not yet very numerous. But they are closely watched, particularly in the Baltic or Eastern countries which have a Russian-speaking minority. Currently the phenomenon seems quite minority According to some observers, at least in Western countries, even if several people (from France, Belgium, Spain) have been seen in the ranks of the separatists or have joined Ukrainian National Guard battalions (eg Azov battalion). What's more, " we are dealing with a different typology of people than in Syria or Iraq says an intelligence specialist who wants to be reassuring. More alarmist point of view from another expert with whom I was able to discuss. These are often people from extremist backgrounds (extreme right, a little less extreme left), " who could thus harden themselves in the fire, and on their return to our countries, take advantage of their experience on the spot, to join groups or serve as a breeding ground for more extreme actions analyzes an observer from military circles. They are often (as the RTBF report shows) in an ideology of admirers of strong power, autocrats à la Putin, and often anti-immigrants. " We would then perhaps have the (re)birth of violent movements at the extremes (particularly the right) as we saw in Italy in the 1980s (Bologna) or in Germany. It is to be observed closely “, he judges.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)