Fighting alongside pro-Russia separatists as part of Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine wasn’t mentioned in the brochures of Luhansk University when Jean Claude Sangwa, a 27-year-old student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, moved to the breakaway region last year to study economics.
But when the head of the Kremlin-controlled, self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic announced a full military mobilisation of the region on 19 February, Sangwa, together with two friends and fellow students from DRC and Central African Republic, decided to join the local militia and take up arms against Ukraine.
