A veteran of both the East Timor and Afghanistan conflicts, Glenn Kolomeitz, says Australian Oscar Jenkins—now revealed to be alive after initial reports suggested he'd been executed by Russian militia—is likely not a mercenary as people commonly understand the term.
Kolomeitz, a former military police officer with a doctorate in international criminal law, has visited Ukraine as part of a mobile justice team gathering evidence for its prosecutor-general amid the Russian invasion.
He has also been an Australian Air Force operations officer trained in targeting, an Army legal officer and investigations manager, and a military prosecutor. He’s also the former CEO of the New South Wales Returned Services League (RSL).
Kolomeitz lived and worked alongside legionnaires during his time in Ukraine, all of whom were former military personnel from various countries.
“In my time in Ukraine I met about 20 to 30 Australians in the Legion, all of whom were ex-ADF [Australian Defence Force],” he told The Epoch Times.
“One of these Australians fought at the Battle of Hostomel [the first major conflict in the Russia-Ukraine war].
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But he hasn’t met Jenkins, who is one of many foreign nationals who decided to join the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine, a process that can be initiated by simply filling out a form on the organisation’s website. Though Kolomeitz says the entry criteria has been “tightened up significantly since the start of the conflict.
“It is no longer feasible to just turn up and fight with a Ukrainian unit,” Kolomeitz says. “Oscar joined the Legion quite recently, so he would have gone through the structured process, including ab initio training.
“It’s difficult to know the motives of somebody who had not, apparently, had any military service before,” Kolomeitz says. “It is a lot easier to discern the motives of former soldiers, which do not include doing it for the money.”
Members of the Legion are paid the same as ordinary Ukrainian soldiers of the same rank, which is equivalent to private.
“They are not motivated by the desire for personal gain,” he says.
“Whilst some legionnaires become team leaders, they do not hold rank as such and are either under the direct command of Ukrainian superiors or, in some specialist roles, have a Ukrainian liaison officer (usually a Sergeant equivalent) working with them.”
“Some of their motivation was undoubtedly altruism—wanting to help Ukraine in its existential fight—but I believe they were mostly motivated by the desire to continue practising their trade—the profession of arms. There is also likely to be an element of adventurism under the surface somewhere.”
The motives of someone like Jenkins—a civilian who has never served in another country’s armed forces—are less clear, but Kolomeitz suspects the same mix.
“I know of one young Australian civilian who joined the Legion,” he says. “I haven’t met him, but was told by his family that he had been unsuccessful in joining the ADF [Australian Defence Force], so he decided to join the Legion. It’s not unreasonable to consider that Oscar’s motivation was that combination of altruism and adventurism.”
Members of Ukraine’s International Legion are not mercenaries, Kolomeitz emphasises.
“If captured by Russian forces, they are prisoners of war and are entitled to the protections afforded by international law.”
Serving as a mercenary is against the terms of the 1989 U.N. Mercenary Convention, though Australia is not a party to it.
Stories that Jenkins had been killed were never confirmed by his unit, Kolomeitz points out.
“Whilst it is well known that Russian forces have killed Ukrainian prisoners of war, there is no precedent of Russian troops killing legionnaires due to the value they offer to the Russian war effort in its information operations and leverage activities as part of its hybrid model of warfare.”
