The decrease home of the Polish parliament has adopted laws to grant amnesty to Polish residents who’ve fought within the ongoing Russian-Ukrainain Warfare, the place personnel have been deployed for operations each on internationally recognised Ukrainian territory, for incursions into Russia, and for fight on a few of the most high-intensity engagements in disputed areas. The choice was interpreted by Russian sources to have formalised Warsaw longstanding endorsement of Polish personnel’s participation within the battle. The invoice was accredited in a near-unanimous vote on February 13, with 406 deputies in favour, 19 abstaining, and 4 opposing the measure, permitting it to proceed to the Senate. The amnesty will cowl all crimes associated to the warfare effort, with Polish officers having framed it as a measure to forgive “volunteers.” The laws permits the “forgiveness and launch into oblivion” of crimes associated to contractor operations, with a three-month delayed implementation clause making certain that Polish personnel presently working on the frontlines may even obtain pardons.
The amnesty has fuelled hypothesis amongst analysts that it could be supposed to assist facilitate an additional surge in Polish forces shifting into the Ukrainian theatre, at a time when Ukraine’s personnel disaster has continued to worsen. A number of studies from each Polish and Russian sources have pointed to Polish forces having lengthy performed a central function within the warfare effort on the bottom in Ukraine. In December 2023 Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz revealed that he had been offered particulars by Polish officers on the nation’s particular forces operations in Ukraine from the warfare’s early phases in early 2022. Concerning efforts to supply deniability for his or her operations, a Polish officer knowledgeable him: “we labored out a method for our presence in Ukraine … we have been merely despatched on paid go away. Politicians pretended to not see this.” Past particular forces, the Polish Volunteer Corps has appeared to make use of the identical mannequin to supply cowl for the mass deployment of Polish Armed Forces personnel, who’re technically former personnel when getting into the theatre, with their presence having for years been broadly reported on a number of frontlines.
The Polish Volunteer Corps first gained important prominence in Might 2023, once they performed a central function in assaults into Russia’s Belgorod area, with the Corps releasing an announcement and video proof of their roles in these operations. The paramilitary models have been particularly concerned in an assault of Belgorod’s Grayvoron District on Might 22, which was one of many preliminary main incursions launched from Ukrainian territory. Movies present Polish models utilizing Ukrainian T-72B tanks and Mi-8 helicopters in addition to U.S.-supplied Humvee armoured automobiles. Former senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defence U.S. Army Colonel (ret.) Douglas McGregor on the time reported the presence of an estimated 20,000 contractors from Poland, though numbers are reported to have elevated considerably since then because the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ personal personnel shortages have worsened.
On the centre of hostilities in the course of the first 18 months of the battle, Ukrainain positions in and across the metropolis of Bakhmut have been reportedly bolstered by outsized deployments of Polish personnel. The pinnacle of the Russian Wagner Group paramilitary power Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has overseen lots of the operations within the space, reported in late April 2023 concerning the deployments of huge numbers of Polish contractor forces: “Properly-trained enemy models are actually being tossed into Bakhmut. Polish speech all day lengthy. Whereas I used to say there have been few mercenaries, now there’s a lot of them.” Polish forces’ familiarity with operations Soviet normal gear is more likely to have been notably useful, as such gear has fashioned the majority of Ukraine’s personal arsenals. The Polish Armed Forces has been quickly retiring Soviet gear corresponding to T-72 tanks from service to donate it to Ukraine, with various studies indicating that these donations are being made particularly to equip Polish contractor models working within the Ukrainian theatre.
Ukrainian and Russian sources broadly reported a big presence of Polish forces in the course of the assault into the Russian Kursk area from August 2024. Russian Army Main Common Apty Alaudinov, deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Important Navy-Political Division, said that a lot of French and Polish navy contractors have been encountered throughout operations. Serviceman from the eightieth Airborne Assault Brigade, Ruslan Poltoratsky recalled to this impact: “After we crossed the border with Russia, at first I believed there was some line noise. However then I distinguished what they have been saying – they have been talking English, Polish, possibly even French. I didn’t perceive something, I mentioned into the walkie-talkie – ‘repeat, repeat,’ listening to some gibberish.” “Once they had already taken positions [in the Kursk Region], in addition they went on the air with their superiors, with ours as nicely, and I additionally heard them saying one thing in English and in another language. One thing about homes, chaos,” he added. U.S. Ahead Observations Group contractors additionally revealed photos confirming their very own participation within the Kursk offensive.
In June 2021 Russian studies highlighted that Polish, Colombian and different Latin American contractor personnel have been taking part in a very vital function in excessive depth hostilities within the Sumy area, the place Russian forces had lately made important advances. In December 2025 former officer within the Ukrainian Safety Service Vasily Prozorov reported that an estimated 10,000 overseas contractor personnel have been killed in motion because the outbreak of full scale Russian-Ukrainian hostilities in February 2022. This determine might exclude lively responsibility personnel corresponding to British Royal Marines who’ve additionally been deployed for frontline operations.
Russian forces have persistently singled out overseas fighters for focusing on, with a strike on a coaching camp close to the central Ukrainian metropolis of Kropivnitsky on July 21, 2025, confirmed to have prompted over 100 casualties amongst overseas fighters, as corroborated by a surviving American fighter, who spoke to the New York Instances. Beforehand on January 16, 2024, a Russian strike on a focus of predominantly French European contractors prompted at the least 80 casualties, 60 or extra of which have been killed.International contractor personnel have been valued not just for expert manpower contributions, but in addition in some instances for his or her capacity to function advanced gear which it has not been not viable to coach Ukrainain personnel to utilise sufficiently shortly.
