The Russian army said on Friday that just under 7,000 “foreign mercenaries” from 64 countries had arrived in Ukraine since the start of the conflict and that nearly 2,000 of them had been killed.
“Our lists, as of June 17, include mercenaries and weapons specialists from a total of 64 countries. Since the start of the special military operation, 6,956 have arrived in Ukraine, 1,956 have already been eliminated, 1,779 have left,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The Russian ministry adds that Poland is the “absolute leader” among European countries in terms of fighters coming to Ukraine, followed by Romania and Britain.
This statement is accompanied by a table of the number of foreign fighters classifying by nationality the arrivals in Ukraine and the losses recorded, according to the Russian army.
For example, he assures that 59 French “mercenaries”, out of 183 who came to fight, have been killed since the start of the Russian offensive. The countries with the most casualties according to Moscow are Poland (378 dead), the United States (214), Canada (162) and Georgia (120).
Since the start of Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine on February 24, thousands of foreign volunteers, mainly Europeans, have traveled to this country to help the forces in kyiv.
Russia presents these fighters as “mercenaries”, a derogatory term that suggests that they are motivated by the lure of profit.
Pro-Russian separatists sentenced three of them, two Britons and a Moroccan, to death.
For their part, Ukraine and its Western allies point out that if there are mercenaries, they are on the Russian side, with in particular the presence of elements of the Wagner group, whose soldiers of fortune have been deployed from Syria to Libya, via Mali.