(New York, N.Y. / Berlin, Germany) – The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) invites you to a presentation of a new book by Kacper Rekawek entitled "Foreign Fighters in Ukraine. The Brown–Red Cocktail".
The Russian (re-)invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted the Ukrainian authorities to call on its foreign supporters to join the war effort as part of the nascent “International Legion.” The thousands of foreign individuals that apparently responded to that call were not the first. Foreigners have been joining both sides of the conflict since 2014.
This book unmasks this largely unknown group of fighters. The author analyses their various ideological and social backgrounds, motivations for joining the conflict, and their battle record in Eastern Ukraine. Based on interviews with these fighters the author examines why they decided to their lives to fight a war abroad, while also attracting the attention of security services at home. The author seeks to establish whether these returnees constitute a potential security threat to the West.
Since 2019 CEP has worked with Kacper Rekawek to analyze the travel of extremist foreign fighters to the conflict in Ukraine from 2014 onwards. Following the Russian re-invasion in February 2022, CEP released two assessments and a detailed analytical report by Kacper Rekawek concerning the developing situation. This webinar continues the CEP virtual event series on this subject.
Recordings of previous webinars focusing on extremist foreign fighter travel to the conflict in Ukraine can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The webinar will be conducted in English via Zoom.
Date: January 20, 2023
Time: 10:00 a.m. ET / 16:00 CET to 11:30 am ET / 17:30 CET
EVENT PROGRAM:
Book Presentation: "Foreign Fighters in Ukraine. The Brown–Red Cocktail"
Kacper Rekawek, PhD
Author, postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo and affiliated researcher at Counter Extremism Project (CEP)
Discussant
Michael Colborne
Journalist at Bellingcat, author of “From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right”
Moderator and Introductory Remarks:
Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler
Senior Director, Counter Extremism Project (CEP)
The presentations will be followed by a Q&A-session open to all participants.
REGISTRATION:
To participate in this webinar please register via this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nJ_4iXJhQL-MQz_eu12ueA
Please register up to 1 hour before the webinar start so that your registration can be approved in time.
Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues with an interest in the subject