140,000 Ukrainians Return to Homeland to Join Military & Fight Russia
Ukraine's armed forces turning volunteers away due to overwhelming response
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Ukraine's military is reportedly turning away volunteers due to the overwhelming response from Ukrainian citizens who want to join the armed forces and help fight the Russian invasion.
An estimated 140,000 Ukrainians have returned to their homeland to join the military and defend their native land, accoridng to reports.
Despite 1.5 million Ukrainians having fled the country amid the Russian invasion in the past two weeks, many others are returning from abroad to join the fight.
Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov revealed that military-aged men are returning from Europe to fight.
Ukrainians on the ground say that volunteers are being turned away from the army due to a lack of weapons to arm all of the men.
"More than 140,000 Ukrainians, mostly men, have returned from Europe," Reznikov wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.
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"Tens of thousands joined the Territorial Defense Forces," Reznikov added.
"Of course, there are those who run away.
"But the whole world sees the Ukrainian people fighting for their country."
The defense minister added that the military has received "more than 20,000 appeals from foreigners who are ready to come to Ukraine and defend the world from the Russian Nazis on the Ukrainian front" in order to prevent "the Kremlin's evil" from spreading.
Mark Savchuk, the Kyiv-based coordinator of the Ukraine Volunteer Journalists Initiative (UVJI), told Fox News that he and a friend attempted to join the military, but they both were turned away.
"I can't join, because I was specifically told ‘no room,’" Savchuk said.
"We are yelling for more weapons because we can't put more people on the front line.
"Please give us more weapons, so that all of us can fight."
"My friend in Iviv was told to f*** off," he added.
"No guns, they can't accept more people."
Savchuk noted the viral images and videos of unarmed Ukrainians in the south crowding around Russian vehicles in order to slow or stop the advance.
"Why would they come unarmed in front of a tank, if they wouldn't want to fight?" he asked.
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Maryan Zablotskyy, a member of the Ukrainian parliament who got his wife and child out of Kyiv, told Fox News that the residents of Kyiv are working to get more supplies in to prepare the city for a Russian assault.
"We are working to get more supplies to Kyiv as the main battleground," Zablotskyy said.
He said that Ukraine "emptied all the stores in [the European Union] for bulletproof vests and are sending them to the army.
"I'm ordering a pack from Turkey today."
He clarified that Ukraine bought "everything that EU's gun stores had for sale or manufacturers in stock."
Zablotskyy also said Ukraine is "working on Starlink, night vision and thermal scopes supplies."
Early Monday morning, Russian forces announced a ceasefire from 10:00 a.m. Moscow time in order to open humanitarian corridors from Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Sumy.
Similar ceasefires have broken down in recent days, with both Ukraine and Russia blaming each other.
