KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine — In the open bed of a pickup truck, half a dozen soldiers were bouncing along a country road in eastern Ukraine when one of them yelled, “Drone!” They all opened fire with their rifles, yet hitting the tiny, swerving speck carrying death was all but impossible.
Buzzing in fast, within seconds it was only about a yard away. In that moment, captured on a helmet camera on a crystalline spring day, the soldiers seemed doomed. In a desperate act of self-defense, one of them, an American, Pvt. Zachary Miller, hurled his empty rifle at the drone — and missed, he said in an interview.
They may never know why, but at the last moment, it veered away, sparing them. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” the soldiers shouted, in English, in the video, which was later posted online by the Ukraine military.
The flow of American volunteers like Miller serving in the Ukrainian military dwindled but never stopped after the initial wave that followed the Russian invasion in 2022. Independent estimates of the number of Americans volunteering since 2022 have varied widely, from more than 1,000 to several thousand. The Ukrainian military does not release figures.
But over time, the makeup of American volunteers has shifted, with higher proportions of people who have no military background, are older or are U.S. veterans seeking to restart military careers closed off to them at home because of age or injuries.
Interviews with American enlistees, aid workers who help them and their Ukrainian commanders reveal an array of motivations. Some come looking for purpose and possibilities they found lacking in dead-end jobs back home. Outrage at Russian aggression remains high on the list of reasons, while some soldiers are looking for a way to leave behind troubled lives. Still others want second chances at military careers and to test themselves in combat.
Several said they intended to remain in Ukraine after having helped defend the country, expecting to find opportunities unavailable in the United States.
Whatever their reasons, enlistment in Ukraine has transformed this from a far-off conflict to a searing, defining experience for American volunteers. Many have experienced close calls as Miller did, grievous wounds, the deaths of comrades, and drawn-out deployments in trenches and the ruins of cities.
For Miller, 38, Ukraine offered an opportunity to resume a military career that he said was cut short more than a decade ago by injuries from a roadside explosion in Iraq and a motorcycle accident that led to his discharge from the U.S. Army. “I never wanted to get out,” he said. “It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do.”
He arrived in February, leaving a job as a concrete contractor just as the Trump administration pivoted U.S. policy away from aiding Ukraine.
Another American soldier, still moving stiffly from wounds, settled his lanky frame into a booth at a coffee shop in eastern Ukraine. His disheveled, strawberry blond hair and scruffy beard partly covered scars and a jaw that seemed slightly off center, mementos of Russian shrapnel.
Weeks of lonely recovery in a Ukrainian hospital followed his injury, being cared for by doctors and nurses who spoke little English.
The injured soldier asked that his name not be published to comply with security rules of the unit he is serving with. He uses the call sign Alabama, for his home state, where he worked as a welder before enlisting in late 2023. He has fought in urban and trench combat, and said he had served alongside American men and women who were mostly from small towns and saw little opportunity there, and with U.S. military veterans who regretted missing a chance to see combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.
He was motivated, he said, by a chance to fight for a just cause, and also by the Ukrainian government’s promise of 4 acres of free land to anyone, Ukrainian or foreign, who serves in the military and survives the war.
Ukraine does not have as many potential soldiers as Russia and has struggled with recruitment, so it welcomes foreign volunteers. They serve in regular army units or one of two international legions. The pay is the same as for Ukrainian soldiers, about $1,000 per month in base salary and combat bonuses that can add about $3,000 per month.
“Some people come to Ukraine with a motive to fight for freedom, for what is right,” said Senior Lt. Mykola Lavrenyuk, the Ukrainian commander of a platoon of international soldiers that includes Americans. “Others want to make money or are running from the law.”
He has seen some U.S. citizens turn up with poor dental care, including missing teeth, and with drug and legal problems. One American soldier, he said, was wanted at home for smuggling drugs over the Mexican border. Before this background was discovered and he was arrested, though, “he fought well,” Lavrenyuk said.
U.S. veterans, he said, are prized because they are generally better trained than veterans of other countries’ militaries. “It’s awesome” to have them in the ranks, he said.
The Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War is displaying an exhibit on foreign combatants in the current war. A curator, Yurii Horpynych, said “several thousand” Americans were serving in the Ukrainian military. At least 92 Americans have been killed in combat in Ukraine, by the museum’s count.
The U.S. government, determined to avoid any suggestion of a direct clash of the nuclear-armed Russian and American militaries, provides almost no assistance to volunteer combatants. A U.S. nonprofit group, the R.T. Weatherman Foundation, helps Americans wounded while fighting in the Ukrainian army, returns remains of deceased soldiers to the United States and tracks cases of those missing in action.
Some American volunteers in Ukraine back out quickly after experiencing the front. “We have guys saying they really want combat,” Lavrenyuk said. “They go to the combat zone, and they say, ‘Sir, I want to go into logistics.’”
Others find an opportunity to gain experience in modern drone warfare.
A 27-year-old veteran of the U.S. Marines who had been working as a mail carrier turned up in Ukraine in March, and by July was arming, launching and piloting exploding drones from a hideout near the front. Going by the call sign Mando, he was working in mottled light filtered through a camouflage net, attaching batteries and explosives to drones to blow up Russian soldiers, bunkers or vehicles. He asked that his real name not be published because many people in his hometown oppose aiding Ukraine.
On a recent night, Junior Sgt. Glenna Manchego, 24, a paramedic from Tooele, Utah, and a U.S. Navy veteran, stood over a gurney in a field hospital, assisting with the amputation of a Ukrainian soldier’s foot. Back in United States, she said, “people forgot we are here.”
She volunteered in March 2022, motivated, she said, by news reports of Ukrainian cities being bombed and a knowledge that her medical skills could help, and has served continuously ever since. She was wounded in combat. She intends to remain in Ukraine after the war. Back home, she said, “if they think of Ukraine, it is only ‘When will it end?’ or ‘Have they given up yet?’”
She wears a patch with the words “Lost Generation” written in Ukrainian, a nod to the U.S. soldiers who remained in Europe after World War I. In Ukraine, she said, “I’ve sweated my sweat and shed my blood.”