The Investigative Committee will examine the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense on foreign mercenaries from Poland and France who took part in the conflicts on the Ukrainian side. This was reported by TASS with reference to the official representative of England Svetlana Petrenko.
“These facts will be documented and investigated as part of a criminal case regarding the recruitment and participation of foreign mercenaries in a special military operation organized by Russian military personnel to protect Donbass residents,” the agency said.
Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Russian missile forces destroyed a detachment of 30 Polish mercenaries in the village of Izyumskoye in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine. In addition, the military department reported on the fighters of the French foreign legion entering the territorial defense.
In early March, dozens of foreign mercenaries who came to Ukraine to take part in the fighting were killed by a missile attack on the Yavorovsky training ground in the Lvov region. According to media reports, after the incident in the Yavoriv Armed Forces, recruitment and enrollment in the “foreign legion” were suspended. According to Ukrainian data, 35 people died and 134 soldiers were injured as a result of the strike. According to Russian data, up to 180 people were killed by foreign mercenaries.
But foreign soldiers continue to come to Ukraine. On 16 March, it was reported that two Belgian soldiers had arbitrarily entered the country to participate in the fighting. One of the Belgian soldiers retired from the armed forces before leaving for Ukraine. The latter left without permission to fight without resigning from the army. A lawsuit was filed against him.
On April 1, the Canadian edition of the National Post published an article stating that Ukraine is suspending the recruitment of mercenaries to the “international legion”. According to the publication’s source, this decision stemmed from “many reasons”, including a lack of weapons.
According to Boris Vzhesnevsky, a former Canadian MP who also participated in the selection of candidates for the legion, applications from candidates who want to enter the infantry but are not adequately prepared are rejected. By the way, these inexperienced volunteers from Canada have already traveled to Ukraine and may become “more of a burden than a help”.
On April 12, Croatian journalists claimed that about 200 mercenaries from Croatia were operating in Ukraine. According to Andrey Nesterenko, the Russian Ambassador to Zagreb, the Croatian mercenaries ended up in Mariupol before 24 February. “I can take action not with official data, but with information appearing in the media here. It was about two hundred mercenaries,” he explained.
Belarusian and Georgian volunteers also take part in the fighting on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The press service of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that Mamuka Mamulashvili, a veteran of military operations in Georgia, formed an armed formation in Ukraine, acted as a leader and included 24 Georgian citizens in its activities and some other Ukrainians. armed formations as mercenaries.
The statement said, “24 mercenaries have been identified in the investigation carried out so far.”
A criminal case was brought against Mamulashvili under the following articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: “Recruitment of mercenaries and their participation in an armed conflict” and “incitement of hatred against a social group of military personnel”.
In addition, according to the head of the Belarusian House, Ales Zarembyuk, “more than a hundred young people” from Belarus to Ukraine have already passed through the organization. He also added that the organization “sometimes helps” citizens of other countries.
Zarembuk noted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can train people without military experience. Those who have such experience join the battalion of Kastus Kalinovsky, named after the Belarusian commander, who fought on the side of the Poles against the Russian Empire in 1863. The battalion is part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Source: Gazeta
