At least a dozen foreign volunteers serving in Ukraine’s military were killed when a Russian missile struck a training camp’s mess hall near Kropyvnytskyi on 21 July, according to The New York Times report citing soldiers with knowledge of the incident.
The attack targeted recruits from the United States, Colombia, Taiwan, Denmark and other countries during lunchtime, when soldiers had gathered at picnic tables for their meal. The Ukrainian Army confirmed the strike killed and injured soldiers but declined to provide specific casualty figures.
An American recruit from Florida, who witnessed the attack, described the explosion as “the loudest he had ever heard” in a telephone interview with the publication. The soldier, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly, said he observed “at least 15 dead soldiers and more than 100 others who were injured” following the blast.
The missile strike also ignited an ammunition depot at the base, triggering secondary explosions that sent “debris and shrapnel whistling through the air” as survivors attempted to assist the injured, according to the American soldier’s account. He reported applying tourniquets to gravely injured personnel and helping transport them to ambulances, trucks and private vehicles for evacuation to hospitals.
The base’s air raid alarm failed to sound before the strike, the witness noted. He expressed dismay at discovering that “first aid kits were nowhere to be found around the mess hall” in the aftermath.
Volodymyr Kaminskyi, spokesman for the international legion under Ukraine’s military intelligence agency HUR, confirmed an investigation into the strike was underway but said casualty figures could not be released during the ongoing probe.
Two foreign soldiers who had trained at the facility, known as Camp Krop, told The New York Times that lax security had been a source of complaints before the attack. They identified the practice of gathering soldiers for communal meals as a particular vulnerability.
The strike represents one of the deadliest attacks on foreign fighters during the war. Since 2022, hundreds of international volunteers have passed through the HUR training site, with recent recruits predominantly from South America. Colombian fighters have been drawn to Ukraine by salaries ranging from $1,000 to $1,750 in base pay monthly, plus combat bonuses exceeding $3,000 per month.
Ukraine’s commanding general Oleksandr Syrskyi said that soldiers at training sites “must respond to air raid alerts and Russian drones immediately.” He announced plans to relocate training operations to “sheltered underground sites as much as possible.”
The Kropyvnytskyi attack follows previous deadly strikes on training facilities. Russian missiles hit a base in Yavoriv near the Polish border during the war’s first month in 2022, killing or injuring dozens. Last year, more than 50 soldiers died in a missile attack in Poltava, while three recruits were killed and 18 injured in a 29 July strike on a training academy.
The American recruit, who had been at the base for less than a week and had not yet received his rifle, said he had “accepted risks in joining the Ukrainian Army” due to his desire to “assist a struggling democracy” but “had never thought people would be killed in training.”