‘Large group’ of foreign mercenaries killed in Ukraine. Russian forces have destroyed a large group of Polish and German mercenaries in a recent strike, the Defense Ministry has said. The precision strike two weeks ago hit a military academy in Lvov.
Russian forces carried out a strike on a mercenary compound in western Ukraine earlier this month, killing a large number of foreign fighters, Moscow’s Defense Ministry confirmed on Saturday.
In a statement, the ministry said verified data indicated that a Russian “group strike using high-precision long-range sea-based weapons” successfully hit a Ukrainian military academy in Lvov on July 6.
The barrage, officials claimed, “destroyed a large number of Polish and German mercenaries that had been stationed there,” without specifying how many.
In total, Moscow’s forces have killed about 4,990 foreign fighters since the start of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine in February 2022, with roughly the same number fleeing the country, the statement read.
“Russia’s armed forces will continue to deliberately destroy foreign mercenaries on the territory of Ukraine,” it added.
On July 6, the ministry claimed it had launched an attack on temporary deployment areas of Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries, as well as warehouses storing Western-supplied military hardware. At the time, it said all designated targets had been hit, adding that “the enemy’s strategic reserves have suffered significant losses.”
Earlier this month, the Russian Defense Ministry said Kiev had stepped up its efforts to recruit more fighters across the world due to manpower shortages at home, adding that Ukraine “mostly uses them as cannon fodder for meat assaults.”
Russia has repeatedly occasions warned foreign mercenaries that should they choose to fight for Ukraine, they would become “legitimate targets,” and that the best they could expect was a “long term in prison.”
Russia reveals number of foreign fighters in Ukraine, and that of almost 12,000 mercenaries that flocked to Kiev’s cause, fewer than 2,300 remain. The Russian Defense Ministry says that most mercenaries end up being used as “cannon fodder”.
A total of 11,675 foreign fighters from 84 countries have been recorded entering Ukrainian service since February 2022, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said during a daily briefing.
Poland accounted for the largest number of foreign combatants – more than 2,600 of them. The US and Canada furnished over 900 each, followed by Georgia (more than 800), the UK and Romania (over 700), Croatia (more than 300), France (over 200) as well as Syrian territories under Turkish control.
However, a total of 4,845 foreign fighters died in battle and another 4,801 fled Ukraine, leaving only 2,209 on active duty in the Ukrainian armed forces as of June 30, Konashenkov noted.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Kiev was intensifying efforts to recruit mercenaries in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, due to facing manpower shortages at home.
“The Kiev regime uses mercenaries mostly as cannon fodder for meat assaults,” Konashenkov said. “The Ukrainian command has no regard for their lives. The only choice they have is to flee Ukraine or die.”
He pointed to the fact that most of the mercenaries arrived early on in the conflict, in March and April of 2022, with the tempo of arrivals “decreasing sharply” after they took the first combat losses. A strike on the base of the ‘International Legion of Ukraine’ in Yavorov in early March 2022 killed up to 180 foreign fighters, with Moscow vowing “no mercy for mercenaries.”
Western veterans who went to Ukraine expecting to use their experiences from Afghanistan or Iraq have testified to media outlets that the current conflict is totally different, describing the incessant artillery as “just hell” and complaining that their life expectancy on the frontline is measured in hours.
“This is my third war I’ve fought in, and this is by far the worst one,” a former US marine told The Daily Beast last week.
In a war with Russia we could have 1,000 AMERICANS KILLED IN ONE DAY IN THE UKRAINE, Douglas Macgregor estimates: You won’t hear this from the regime media. When 1,100 of your soldiers are killed in battle you are at war. Did Congress authorize a war with Russia? It is time to follow Jefferson’s advice.
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government…” ― Thomas Jefferson
900 American PMCs in Ukraine: “Ukrainian Command Throws Foreign Mercs into ‘Meat-Grinder’” – Richard Abelson
An unknown number of “retired” American service members have volunteered to fight in Ukraine, in addition to active DoD and CIA personnel deployed in-country.
The CIA mainstains “a network of commandos and spies among European partners set up to provide critical weapons and military intelligence to Ukraine,” Responsible Statecraft writes. “Even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces”, according to the New York Times.
According to the Pentagon Leaks, there are “at least 97 special forces from Nato countries active in Ukraine,” The Guardian reported. Of these 50 were British, 14 American and 15 French. “The UK’s special forces include the SAS, the Special Boat Service, the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, as well as several other secretive military units such as the 18 (UKSF) Signals Regiment.”
BBC Newsnight: Brits in Battle – Ukraine
According to the Pentagon Leaks, there were a total of 29 DoD personnel in Ukraine in April. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has filed a resolution to force White House Resident Joe Biden to reveal how many American troops are deployed in Ukraine, Breitbart reported.
How many US volunteers and “retired” service members are active in Ukraine is not known. A US mercenary was allegedly present at the killing of 11 Russian POWs in Makeyevka in the northern Luhansk region in November, as Gateway reported.
The peak influx of foreign mercenaries was immemiately after the Russian Invasion, but after the first casualties, the growth rate suddenly decreased, Russia claims. “Moscow now believes the number of foreign PMCs in Ukraine is rapidly declining. Russia’s Ministry of Defense believes that only around 2,000 remain today. It has also claimed that about 5,000 foreign volunteers fled Ukraine after seeing how the authorities treated them,” Russia Today writes.
President Vladimir Zelensky announced the formation of the International Legion of Territorial Defense in order to attract foreign volunteers to Ukraine Feb. 27, 2022. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba claimed that by March 6, more than 20,000 volunteers from 52 countries had joined. In March 2023, the New York Times found there may be only 1,500 members of the Ukraine Foreign Legion.
Moscow now claims that, due to problems with mobilization in Ukraine, considerable losses, and flagging recruitment in Western countries, Kiev has begun actively recruiting fighters from Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East – from Argentina, Brazil, Afghanistan, Iraq, and “US-controlled areas of Syria,” Russia Today writes.
According to French RTL television channel, foreigners who join the International Legion receive about €500 ($550) per month – or €3,000 if they serve on the front line. RTL claims that most French citizens who join the AFU buy their own equipment, since the Ukrainian army cannot provide all of them with gear. One mercenary, who has been in Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict and wished to remain anonymous, said that he spent almost €50,000. For example, an assault rifle costs €4,000, but some people go so far as to buy cars to go to the front. Some spend their personal savings, while others announce online fundraising campaigns, RTL reports.
During Russian interrogations, “captured Ukrainian servicemen have reportedly said the commanders of front-line AFU units are not held accountable for losses among mercenaries,” Russia Today reports. “The Ukrainian command throws units with foreign mercenaries into so-called ‘meat-grinder assaults’ on Russian positions. Wounded mercenaries are the last to be evacuated, only after all Ukrainian servicemen are removed [from the battlefield],” claimed the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Ukraine stepping up mercenary recruitment effort – Russian MOD says, after enormous battlefield losses have forced Kiev to look elsewhere after a reduction in hired guns from Europe.
In a statement, the ministry alleged that the Ukrainian military command views foreign fighters as cannon fodder, sending them into the riskiest missions and placing them at the back of the line when it comes to the evacuation of injured troops. This has made recruiting fighters in European countries such as Poland much harder for Kiev, the assessment claimed.
Ukraine has consequently ramped up efforts to find candidates in other parts of the world, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, which stated that a recruitment drive is underway in Argentina, Brazil, Afghanistan, Iraq, and areas of Syria that are “under American control.”
The reference to Syria likely concerns the predominantly Kurdish northeastern part of the country. The US supplied Kurdish militias with weapons, training and air support when they served as ground forces for the Washington-led coalition in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). The Pentagon also maintains a military base in eastern Syria, despite the objections of the government in Damascus.
The Russian Defense Ministry further claimed that Ukraine’s diplomatic missions in the US and Canada are actively hiring fighters with the help of the CIA and private military contractors under its influence.
There are numerous accounts from foreign fighters describing the perils of joining the Ukrainian ranks, including mismanagement by military leaders, corruption with logistics, and the overwhelming risks of engaging Russian forces.
The US is trying to use foreign mercenaries to plug gaps in Ukraine – they are in for a rude awakening, Rachel Marsden writes.
The propaganda machine is inciting ordinary citizens to go to war in Ukraine – where they go through hell
Western mercenaries from countries other than the US are dying for Washington’s interests while President Joe Biden warns Americans themselves to stay away.
Most of the foreign mercenaries in Ukraine at this point aren’t American, according to Russia’s Channel One news. It’s actually Poland and Canada that lead the charge, with the US coming in third. And now reports are starting to emerge of US intelligence attempting to fill the void with even more foreign recruits to fight for US interests against Russia in Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense estimates that about 2,000 of the approximately 7,000 ‘volunteers’ have been killed.
Recent reporting reveals a troubling trend among Western mercenary deaths: combatants whose military experience is virtually non-existent. Presumably it all looked like good Hollywood action hero fun from afar — until the bullets started whizzing by.
In a story published in May about two Canadian mercenaries who volunteered for Ukraine’s “International Legion” and were killed in the Artyomovsk (named Bakhmut by Ukraine) battle, the CBC revealed that one had previously served in the Canadian Forces as a medic and had been photographed working in search and rescue in Kharkov. Kyle Porter, a 27-year old from Calgary, had been in touch with Canada’s state broadcaster. “Let me figure out how I am going to survive the next few days,” he wrote. “It was a meat grinder the first time and I’m not expecting it any better this time around.” You’d think he’d have taken an offramp at that point. Nope, not Rambo here.
The question that everyone should be asking is how on earth Canadians, whose combat experience amounts to administering band-aids and applying tourniquets, could subsequently end up serving on the front lines — all while the Canadian government seemingly just shrugs. We’re talking here about a government that legislated zero-risk against overwhelmingly survivable Covid, but now can’t even be bothered to save unprepared Canadians from a much more likely death in Ukraine.
Last May, the CBC reported on yet another Canadian veteran, identified only as “Shadow,” describing how he and his colleagues had repeatedly come under fire in the Donbas. While “Shadow” might seem like a code name for a main character in a Hollywood movie about a badass who goes around single-handedly meting out justice, in reality he’s a meteorological technician who “experienced combat for the first time as a volunteer in Ukraine,” according to the report. The weather guy probably shouldn’t be placed in a position to be “blown out of their sniper’s nest by a shell.”
For all his weather expertise, Shadow doesn’t seem to be too well-versed in grand chess geopolitics either. “If NATO had stepped in, the war would have been done in like less than a week, but because everyone sat back and watched, well, we are seeing all those civilians dying,” he told the CBC. Actually, direct NATO military confrontation with Russia would have resulted in World War III, and probably a few more civilian deaths than Shadow imagines.
The other Canadian mercenary whom Shadow was “assisting,” and whose own superhero name is “Wali,” has been described by the Western press as a “sniper” who had been working as a …software engineer. He, at least, had the sense to bail shortly after arriving in Ukraine, citing shoddy organization. “You had to know someone who knew someone who told you that in some old barbershop they would give you an AK-47,” he said.
It doesn’t look like much has changed since then. The International Legion mercenaries are still largely underqualified for combat, under supported, or both.
American Cooper “Harris” Andrews, died during battle in Artyomovsk in April, according to Fox News.
Described as a Marine with five years experience, he was discharged in January 2022 from Camp Lejeune — as a ground electronics transmission system maintainer. Shortly thereafter, he left for Ukraine where he was then close enough to the battlefront that he was killed by a mortar shell. What’s next — recruiting chefs from Western armies and sending them into the line of fire?
Two other American mercenaries caught recently near Kharkov reportedly complained of poor Ukrainian intelligence and lack of preparation for combat, according to Russia’s Channel One.
One pretty clear indication of that being the case is when the American “trainers” sent to Ukraine, legitimate special forces with combat and intelligence expertise, don’t end up faring much better than the amateurs. Former Green Beret Nicholas Maimer, was killed when his position came under artillery fire in Artyomovsk, Fox News reported in May.
There’s also the obvious question of how much mission creep exists for such “trainers.” After all, once you’re in the Wild West of a combat zone, it can be a slippery slope from training to fighting. What sounds to the average person back home like a classroom role or a desk job could, in reality, end up being something else entirely.
The pool of foreign personnel in Ukraine is dwindling, either because they end up killed or they come to their senses beforehand. Now, unconfirmed reports have emerged from the Middle Eastern press that US intelligence is recruiting a new batch of mercenaries in Syria. One would think that Turkey’s efforts over the past few years to recruit CIA and Pentagon trained “Syrian rebels” to fight in the Western-sparked Libyan civil war would have drained that particular talent pool, but it’s not hard to imagine the desperate measures needed for now desperate times.
Washington is unwilling to send troops en masse to die fighting Russia in Ukraine, to the point where the deaths of American military “trainers” are still considered terrible aberrations. Why, then, should anyone else, from any other country, be goaded or guilted or seduced into fighting in yet another Washington-led NATO conflict?
The propaganda machine is inciting ordinary citizens to go to war in Ukraine – where they go through hell, Rachel Marsden concludes.
Sky News Australia recently portrayed Irish volunteer Rhys Byne, who was leaving the front lines after “nearly getting killed” by “an encounter with a Russian tank.”
Foreign fighters leave Ukraine after defeat
Ukraine Front Line is “Horror. Genocide. Slaughter”, Says Irish “Rambo” Who Is Leaving after 17 Months
Sky News international correspondent John Sparks spoke to an Irish volunteer, Rhys Byrne, who has been fighting on the frontline in the east of Ukraine for 17 months and is now leaving Ukraine “due to witnessing atrocities,” Sparks reports. Byrne called the fighting he witnessed “horrific.”
“On ‘Zero Line’ it’s horror. It’s horror. There is just a genocide. It’s slaughter”, says Rhys Byrne, codename ‘Rambo’, a 28-year-old from Dublin. Byrne fought for the 59th brigade in the Ukrainian territorial army, where he operated a heavy machine gun, Sparks reports.
“There are dead people everywhere. Russians dead. Ukrainian people dead…. the biggest problem we get when we’re going into trenches is stepping over all the dead bodies that are already there from the last people [who] went in – that kind of stuff really haunts you.”
Byrne and a fellow volunteer had decided to leave Ukraine after experiencing “the final straw” that nearly got him killed: an encounter with a Russian tank.
“We were told there was a Russian trench line and our job is to go into the trenches and clear them out and hold them until the auxiliary units come and then we go back.” Byrne said his unit, consisting of 40 Ukrainians, Americans and Britons, were taken to an area near the front or ‘Zero Line’ with no air cover or drones. A pair of Ukrainian tanks withdrew, leaving them with no support.
When they saw another tank approaching, they assumed it was friendly – but it was a Russian tank, which opened fire on their position. “Those who survived took cover in the woods,” Sparks reports. The dramatic footage recorded of the Irishman’s body camera documents the incident.
The volunteers were rescued by a Ukranian Humvee pick-up under fire as the enemy tank began to chase them. “Now we have the tank literally coming out, starting to chase us. And that’s terrifying when you see a big T-72 coming for you and you’re in a Humvee pick-up. Yeah, it’s like a hot knife through butter. You’re finished. So, again, all of us are screaming, drive the Humvee, drive the Humvee. I was going mental.”
Byrne saw a Russian shell sail over their heads. “We are not supposed to be alive. I mean, we were closer than close to death, it was closer than close… it was really f***** up.”
Sparks spoke to Byrne at a shelter for international volunteers run by New Zealander Pastor Owen Panoma, who called the shelter “a source of some sort of support, you know, to sit there, where are you from? You got kids? You know, basically to take their mind off the war.”
Many of the volunteers are haunted by what they have been through, Panoma says: “They sleep talk. They scream. At night-time you come out to go to the toilet, ‘you guys alright?’ and the guys wake up. You know, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They may not be aware of what they’re actually doing because it’s quiet here, out there it’s not.”
A French military serviceman (R) stands guard as French military servicemen take part in a military drill to train Ukrainian servicemen, ahead of their departure to the Ukrainian frontline. © Daphné BENOIT / AFP