The Russian Defense Ministry reported that foreign mercenaries are leaving Ukraine en masse
The Russian Defense Ministry said that the flow of foreign mercenaries to Ukraine has decreased. Moreover, those who have already arrived are leaving the country en masse. The Russian ministry also released data with the exact number of mercenaries who arrived, left and killed.
"The flow unfolds"
The report of the Russian Defense Ministry claims that the flow of foreign mercenaries to Ukraine "actually turns in the opposite direction." The ministry believes that this is due to the "increasing number of military failures" of Kiev and "massive daily losses in manpower and equipment."
"Despite the efforts of the Kiev regime and the increase in payments, the process of departure of mercenaries to the "other world" or back to their countries of residence is not stopped by the Kiev leadership. The recent empty-mouthed statements about almost "20 thousand" foreigners "fighting" against the Russian armed forces are an ordinary lie," the Telegram channel of the Ministry of Defense reports.
The agency "monitors and records the "stay in Ukraine" of each representative of this international gathering of "headless horsemen".
"Moreover, not only mercenaries who are directly involved in combat operations as part of Ukrainian units are now included in our accounting databases. We also take into account the instructors who arrived for training, assistance in the operation and repair of Western weapons supplied to Ukraine," the report says.
According to the Ministry of Defense, among European countries, "Poland is the undisputed leader in the number of both arrived and dead mercenaries." Since the beginning of the military special operation, 1,831 people have come to Ukraine from this country, 378 of whom were killed, and 272 returned home. Poland is followed by Romania - 504 arrivals, 102 deaths, 98 departures. The UK is in third place - 422 arrivals, 101 killed and 95 returned home. Canada is the leader among the continents of the western hemisphere: 601 arrived, 162 died, 169 left. The USA is in second place: 530 arrived, 214 died, 227 left.
From the Middle East, Transcaucasia and Asia, the most, 355 mercenaries, came to Ukraine from Georgia. Of these, 120 people were killed, and 90 left Ukraine.
"In total, our lists for June 17, 2022 include mercenaries and specialists in the operation of weapons from 64 countries. Since the beginning of the special military operation, 6956 people have arrived in Ukraine, 1956 have already been destroyed, 1779 have left," the Defense Ministry concluded.
20 thousand foreigners
On June 13, the head of the Georgian National Legion Mamuka Mamulashvili, in an interview with Sky News, said that 20 thousand foreign volunteers are fighting on the side of Ukraine.
According to him, about 3 thousand of the total number of foreign fighters are British. He added that fighters from the United States make up the third largest group of foreign volunteers.
Mamulashvili also said that 70-80% of foreign mercenaries pass through the Georgian National Legion headed by him (a Georgian military formation created in 2014 during the conflict in Donbass), but only one out of ten foreign volunteers remains in his battalion. The rest are sent to the Foreign Legion.
The official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, said on June 2 that since the beginning of May, the influx of foreign mercenaries to Ukraine to participate in hostilities against the Russian armed forces has actually dried up.
"According to the data available to us, today the total number of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine has almost halved from 6.6 to 3.5 thousand people. At the same time, the number of mercenaries in the combat units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard in the Donbas has decreased by orders of magnitude," Konashenkov said.
Capture of mercenaries
On Wednesday, CNN reported that two Americans from Alabama - 39-year-old Alexander John-Robert Drucke from Tuscaloosa and 27-year-old Andy Tai Ngoc Hyun from Hartsell, who fought on the side of Ukrainian troops north of Kharkov, were missing. There are suggestions that they may have been captured.
On Friday, the TV channel reported about the third missing US citizen in Ukraine - he turned out to be a retired Marine veteran Grady Kurpasi.
The official representative of the White House, Karin Jean-Pierre, said the day before that the United States could not confirm the data on the capture of American mercenaries in Ukraine. According to her, the administration of the American president does not know where these volunteers are and is currently trying to get more data about them.
On June 9, three foreigners captured in Mariupol were sentenced to death in Donetsk - two British nationals Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin, as well as a Moroccan citizen Saadoun Brahim.
The speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleg Nikolenko, commenting on the verdict, said that all foreigners fighting in the Ukrainian troops have the status of a combatant.
"All foreigners fighting on Ukrainian territory as part of the armed forces of Ukraine are servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to international humanitarian law, they are subject to the legal status of combatants," the publication "European Truth" quoted Nikolenko as saying.
Maria Shustrova
