Ukrainians Return Home to Fight Russia: ‘I Have to Go’

“I would love not to fight, and be alive, but this is the time where if I want to be able to look myself in the mirror, I have to, have to go,” said Mr. Azarkhin, who has been living in Berlin and had never fired a gun outside a firing range. “Otherwise, I will live in my own personal hell in my head.”

Ukrainians from across Europe—part of a huge diaspora that has spread across the continent in the three decades since the former Soviet republic gained independence—are returning to their home country to pick up arms in their fight against Russia.

Those men, and some women, have, in general, no combat experience, little training, and few have weapons of their own. They are drawn from the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians—truck drivers and cabbies, students and IT workers—who have emigrated in search of jobs and prosperity in Europe’s wealthier countries.

“It’s our home, it’s our country, and I don’t have a different one,” said Dmytro, a cryptocurrency trader driving his Volkswagen home to fight.

There are no reliable estimates as to how many people are going back to Ukraine to fight.

Today, as much of the world rallies in support of Ukraine with arms and money, they are joining the ranks of civilian volunteers already taking up arms in Ukraine. Ukraine’s government has given out 18,000 rifles to volunteers of its territorial defense militias since the Russians invaded on Thursday.

Polish and other European officials openly support the return of the Ukrainian émigrés, raising the possibility that Europe will become a staging ground for a war that could become a bloody, drawn-out conflict.

“If it was me, I would go too,” said a Polish police officer posted at Poland’s Korczowa border, as cars bringing young and middle-aged men to Ukraine drove past.

Non-Ukrainians are starting to join, too.

On one

Facebook

page that has been rallying volunteers to go and fight, a group of Belarusians living in Warsaw—a city that has long hosted that country’s exiled dissidents—said they had left for Kyiv: “They’ve gone to fight Russians,” said one of the Facebook organizers.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky

announced Kyiv was founding the International Legion of the Ukrainian army, an echo of the brigades of American and European volunteers who helped to wage a doomed struggle against fascists in Spain in the 1930s. Ukraine’s current laws permit foreign nationals to enlist in Ukraine’s armed forces. Across Europe, Ukrainian diplomats are seeking to recruit and raise funds for the volunteer efforts.

Ukraine’s embassy in the Czech Republic Saturday created a crowdsourcing campaign to raise funds for weapon purchases for Ukraine’s armed forces and citizen self-defense units. Within an hour, Czech residents had donated $250,000, and within a day, about seven foreign embassies had reached out to help, said Czech Deputy Defense Minister Tomas Kopecny.

“It’s increasing every minute,” he said. “It’s not only individuals, it’s also government institutions.”

The Czech Defense Ministry will identify arms and other military gear; the shipments will be trucked overland with a police escort to the border. The country is also sending oil and fuel to the Ukrainian military.

On Sunday, U.K. Foreign Secretary

Liz Truss

told the British Broadcasting Corp. that she supports those in the U.K. who wish to join the fight in Ukraine, saying the war there is a battle for democracy.

The U.S. and all its major allies in Europe—France, the U.K. and Germany—have pledged arms, gear and even jet fighters for the Ukrainian armed forces, which are far outmatched by those of Russia. Military transport trucks escorted by police have been driving back and forth across the Polish-Ukrainian border, dropping off weapons and ammunition. As they drive, they pass Ukrainian men seeking to hitchhike home.

“I wouldn’t be able to sit with my family at the table if I didn’t join the fight,” said Oleg Lamaha, a 29-year-old who has been living in Poland, walking toward the border. “I’ve never been a fighter…It took me six hours to decide: When the fighting starts, you just have to go.”

For years, the combatants crossing Ukraine’s borders to pick up arms were joining the pro-Russian forces that had taken control of a territory in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, more than 17,000 fighters from more than 50 countries have joined the Russian-backed forces there, according to the Counter Extremism Project, a monitoring group. Last week, Ukraine’s military said another detachment of foreign mercenaries had arrived in the east, part of what Kyiv says is a plan to stage provocations to justify Russia’s invasion.

Few of the volunteers have guns, instead hoping to pick them up from the state armory on their arrival.

Igor Tokar, a 53-year-old truck driver working in Poland, was counting on grabbing his Beretta hunting shotgun from his village home en route. Truck drivers, he said, had been organizing among themselves.

“I know so many other truck drivers from Lithuania who are coming, and they haven’t even made it here yet,” he said, waiting to drive across the border.

Two cars behind him, another truck driver waiting to cross said he knew of 10 friends planning to come. Sergei Libanski, another volunteer who arrived at the border Sunday, said he knew of 20.

“A lot of us were here in Europe, working,” said Mr. Libanski, a 42-year-old trucker. “Now we’re going home to fight.”

Their efforts face long odds against a Russian military that has already made significant, if incomplete gains, without yet fully deploying all the nearly 200,000 personnel stationed along Ukraine’s borders. The stream of volunteers, and the full-throated support in European capitals, for Ukraine could herald a bloody guerrilla war against the Russian army.

Catalin Sauliuc, a yearslong friend to Mr. Azarkhin, the tattoo artist in Berlin, realized he couldn’t talk his friend out of going. Instead, he gave him a ride, the two of them blasting music as they drove across Europe. Along the way, they stopped for a round of drinks and memories with old friends, other immigrants from Ukraine.

“His family is there, and his brothers are on the front line,” said Mr. Sauliuc, holding back tears. “I’m looking forward to coming back to this same border and picking him up as soon as possible.”

Mr. Azarkhin boarded a bus, the driver anxious to go.

“These are the times that we are in, the insanity that is going on right now,” he said. “I’m terrified to my core.”

—Malgosia Krakowska contributed to this article.

Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com