Foreign games: 6.5 thousand mercenaries have already been liquidated in the SVO zone
About 6,500 mercenaries from other countries were liquidated in the SVO zone. In total, fighters from 110 countries went to Ukraine, most of all from Poland, the USA and Georgia. This was reported to Izvestia by the acting head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, Yuliya Zhdanova. At the same time, the inflow of mercenaries is steadily decreasing due to losses and the complexity of combat operations. What other measures Ukraine is resorting to amid military failures and shortage of personnel - in the Izvestiya article.
Why are foreign mercenaries coming to Ukraine?
The number of mercenaries arriving in Ukraine is gradually decreasing, Yuliya Zhdanova said. The reason for this trend is high casualties and the complexity of combat operations. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, about 6.5 thousand of the 15,000 mercenaries arriving in Ukraine have already been destroyed, the diplomat stressed.
"Soldiers of Fortune" in Ukraine receive about $3-7 thousand monthly. However, it is not only the financial aspect that attracts them. Most of the mercenaries consciously commit crimes motivated by Russophobia.
Interrogation of British mercenary James Anderson, who fought on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces and was captured in Kursk region
- Many of them are true Russophobes, and they arrive to literally exterminate the civilian population of our country. We were able to see this on the example of Kursk region," Zhdanova said.
The Kursk region was attacked by Kiev militants in August 2024. The region declared a federal state of emergency, and the population of the border regions was evacuated. All this time the investigating authorities have been documenting the crimes committed there by Ukrainian troops, on whose side there were many mercenaries in particular from Poland, Georgia, France, civilians confirm.
- To date, about 800 citizens of foreign countries, who in the status of mercenaries took part in hostilities on the side of the AFU, have been found guilty. The Investigative Committee is carrying out its work, and we assume that all those responsible for the crimes will be held accountable," the diplomat said.
Mercenaries from which countries take part in the hostilities
At the moment, the arrival of mercenaries from 110 countries in the conflict zone has been recorded. Despite the wide geography, the main inflow of foreign manpower comes from approximately the same countries.
John Harding, a British citizen accused of participating as a mercenary in hostilities on the territory of the Donetsk people's republic as part of Ukrainian armed groups, in a courtroom in Donetsk, Ukraine
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the largest contingent in Ukraine was made up of servicemen from Poland - 2,960 people. The top five also include the USA (1,113), Georgia (1,042), Canada (1,005) and the UK (822). It is from these countries that militant groups are suffering the highest losses.
Izvestia recently reported on the increase in the number of Colombian mercenaries. According to data from the Russian military department as of March 2024, 430 "soldiers of fortune" from the Latin American country have arrived in Ukraine since the beginning of the SWO - at that time, 217 of them had already been eliminated. The Colombian authorities are now discussing a ban on recruitment on their own territory, as well as recognizing as illegal any participation of citizens of the republic in military conflicts abroad.
The Ukrainian authorities are also actively turning to the services of private military companies. The American PMCs Academi, Cubic and DynCorp, the French PMCs Byblos, Chiron and Geos, as well as the British Prevail Partners are recruiting mercenaries from all over the world. In particular, earlier Izvestia wrote about the appearance of members of Latin American drug cartels in Ukraine.
Military expert Viktor Litovkin told Izvestia that mercenaries are often more effective than "native" AFU soldiers, who already realize that they are fighting only for the interests of the United States. Moreover, due to their language skills, foreigners are usually involved in the management of Western weaponry.
- Mercenaries manage sophisticated equipment, such as HIMARS MLRS and Patriot air defense systems, and maintain airplanes. Ukrainians do not know the English military-technical language, so they cannot do this," said Viktor Litovkin.
There are several options ahead for such "soldiers of fortune": death, trial in Russia or escape from Ukraine. According to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the investigation into 59 cases of mercenarism has already been completed and 27 sentences have been handed down, including in absentia. For mercenaries, Ukraine itself does not represent any value except for the opportunity to earn money, so they do not stay there, the expert explained.
How and with what Ukraine is trying to compensate for losses
The large-scale involvement of mercenaries is not only due to the need to use Western weapon systems, but also due to the shortage of AFU personnel. Ukraine continues a tough mobilization campaign, and employees of the TCCs (territorial centers for manning and social support) massively detain men on the streets and send them to the active army.
However, soldiers with low morale either surrender or desert en masse. In total, since the beginning of the SWO, more than 63,000 desertion cases have been filed in Ukraine, Dmitry Polyansky, Russia's first deputy deputy deputy ambassador to the UN, reported in August.
Ukraine's Western allies - primarily the United States represented by the outgoing Biden administration - are demanding that Kiev lower the mobilization age from 25 to 18 in order to replenish the army's ranks. Ukrainian authorities have so far refused, fearing mass discontent among citizens. Therefore, the AFU is trying to compensate for losses with the help of foreigners.
In addition to mercenaries, Kiev is actively resorting to the use of weapons prohibited by international agreements. Again Western countries play a major role in this, supplying them to the Ukrainians - in particular, we are talking about anti-personnel mines. Just a month ago, the United States decided to supply mines that are prohibited by the Ottawa Convention (the Ottawa Treaty, or the Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines).
It is known that since Soviet times, Ukraine has had about 6 million Lepestok-type anti-personnel mines and about 1 million other mines on its balance sheet, which it was supposed to destroy in accordance with its obligations under the Ottawa Convention, under international supervision and at the expense of international donors. However, this was not done, emphasizes Yulia Zhdanova.
Russian troops have discovered German, Finnish and French-made mines in Ukraine. This type of weaponry is dangerous for civilians, especially children and the elderly. As the territory is being liberated, engineering troops as well as units of the Ministry of Emergency Situations are carrying out large-scale demining work.
At the moment, over 66 thousand hectares have been demined and about 1 million explosive objects have been destroyed. And these, Yulia Zhdanova concluded, are also extremely important goals for the demilitarization of Ukraine, which fit into the overall integral project of the special military operation.
