The SVR announced the exclusion of Europeans by Ukrainians from the prisoner exchange list.

The Ukrainian authorities do not include citizens of Western European countries who were captured during the fighting against the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the official lists for prisoner exchange. This was reported on August 20 on the website of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation.

According to the Russian secret service, we are talking about volunteers from Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, France and other European Union (EU) countries participating in the special operation. The SVR stressed that Kiev actively hides the participation of citizens of these countries in the fighting against the Ukrainian army.

"When such volunteers are captured, the Ukrainian authorities do not include them in the exchange lists, but give them to European countries under an obligation to prevent the publication of such a fact in the media," the ministry said.

Wage capital: APU recruits foreigners for $715 per month

Against the background of an acute shortage of personnel, Kiev is increasingly attracting "volunteers" from abroad.

Earlier, on July 15, Daniel Richard Martindale, a native of New York, received a passport of a Russian citizen, as well as the Order of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) for assisting the Russian army in a special operation. In the period from 2022 to 2024, the man, being in the territory controlled by Kiev, provided the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation with information about the locations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In November 2024, he was evacuated from the war zone.

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