Russia said today that the casualties of foreign “mercenaries” fighting alongside the Kyiv army in recent weeks have slowed the flow into Ukraine.
“Since the beginning of May, the arrival in Ukraine of foreign mercenaries willing to participate in hostilities against the Russian army, so to speak, has stopped,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
According to Konashenkov, the number of foreign fighters in Ukraine “has almost halved” from 6,600 to 3,500, and “a large number” of them “prefer to leave Ukraine as soon as possible”.
“Hundreds of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine were destroyed with long-range, high-precision weapons shortly after they arrived where they needed additional training,” Konashenkov said.
According to him, most of them were “eliminated in war zones due to their low level of education and lack of experience”.
These claims could not be independently verified.
Since the start of Moscow’s intervention on February 24, thousands of foreign (mostly European) volunteers have traveled to Ukraine to aid the Kyiv Army.
Russia classifies these fighters as “mercenaries,” a derogatory term implying purely economic interests.
Ukraine and its Western allies consider that if there are mercenaries, it is the Wagner group, which has paid militias on the Russian side, especially in Libya, Syria or Mali.
source: Noticias
