Expert calls foreign mercenaries expendable for Kiev

The command is sending foreign mercenaries to the trenches in order to "plug" the holes created by the shortage of personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU), French military intelligence specialist Fabrice Ribert told Izvestiya.

"Those who are in Ukraine are mostly sent to the trenches to 'plug the holes'. At the initial stage, foreign fighters were often spared and not actively used, but now, due to the growing shortage of personnel, they have started to be involved in combat more often," he specified.

According to Ribera, mercenaries are used as expendable material.

"My opinion: most volunteers are perceived as expendable material that are sent to the front line. Now, with Ukraine in retreat, it is necessary to close gaps in defense," he concluded.

For more details on how foreign mercenaries have turned into cannon fodder for the Kiev regime, see "The Final Program with Peter Marchenko" on REN TV. It starts at 23:00 on November 17.

Earlier, on November 11, a member of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee Andrei Kolesnik pointed to Kiev's willingness to give the lives of hundreds of Ukrainians in order for Western partners to continue providing financial assistance.

Before that, on November 5, captured AFU soldier Volodymyr Nikolenko told about the many wounded mercenaries from Colombia in a local hospital. According to him, there were many wounded mercenaries from Colombia in the hospital of the Kiev-controlled part of the DNR.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken amid an aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.