Grieving father launches group supporting families of volunteers lost in Ukraine

OTTAWA — A grieving New Brunswick father has launched an organization to support the families of foreigners who have disappeared, died or been captured while fighting in Ukraine’s foreign legion.

“Pain has no nationality. Hope has no border,” Marc Mazerolle said Monday on Parliament Hill.

“Behind every prisoner of war, behind every missing soldier, there’s an entire family living with uncertainty, fear and unanswered questions,” he said.

Mazerolle said his son Patrick was killed fighting as a military volunteer in Ukraine last September at age 24. Mazerolle has struggled to get basic, credible information or to make progress in getting his son’s remains to Canada.

His wife found 14 other foreigners in the legion, and contacted them to find out how their son had been killed. The family ended up paying a Ukrainian lawyer to navigate legal and administrative systems.

“We discovered that thousands of families from around the world are facing the same uncertainty. Many felt isolated. Many did not know where to turn,” he said.

“Many simply needed someone to guide them and remind them that they’re not alone.”

Mazerolle went to Kyiv in February to provide a DNA sample in the hopes it can help speed up the process of having his son’s body identified and brought to Canada one day.

He has launched a group called the International League of POW/MIA Families of the War in Ukraine, which aims to provide people around the world with resources on how to navigate Ukrainian systems and access mental-health support.

The group aims to launch an office in Kyiv that can help with language barriers, provide advocacy and media relations support and oversee how various countries can help families.

Mazerolle said he is not critical of the Ukrainian government or the consular services offered by Global Affairs Canada, but he says it’s clear Kyiv needs help to better support families of those killed as volunteer soldiers, as the country fights off Russia.

Taras Kulish, a lawyer supporting the group, said countries like Canada could help by providing Ukraine with investigatory expertise and funding, “so that Ukraine does not bear the sole burden by itself.”

Estimates of how many foreign fighters are supporting Ukraine’s military vary widely, and countries at war are generally reluctant to disclose how many soldiers are killed.

Mazerolle said there are likely thousands of foreign detained, missing or dead. He is in touch with about 20 families, including four in Canada, with relatives who have either been reported as missing in action or taken prisoner of war by Russia.

He said a new family contacts him each week, from places as varied as Finland, Australia and Colombia.

Ukraine launched an international legion in February 2022, days into Russia’s full-scale invasion that followed the 2014 invasion and seizure of Crimea.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 6, 2026.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press