Russian MOD Warns Foreign Mercenaries Against Participating In Ukraine's Hostilities

At Thursday's briefing, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov emphasized that all mercenaries sent by the West to help the Kiev nationalist regime are not combatants under international humanitarian law and they are not entitled to prisoner of war status.

Please note that against the background of the encirclement and destruction of the main groups of Ukrainian nationalists by the Russian Armed Forces, Western countries have increased the dispatch of contract soldiers from private military companies to the areas of hostilities.

Foreign mercenaries who have arrived in Ukraine are committing sabotage and raids on Russian convoys of equipment and supplies, as well as aircraft covering them.

It is they who, evade getting into the frame of the phones of supposedly “local residents” in the propaganda videos distributed on social networks by the Ukrainian special services.

All attacks by foreign mercenaries are carried out using weapons supplied by the West to the Kiev regime. We are talking about anti-tank systems Javelin (USA), NLOW (Great Britain) and man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems Stinger, the use of which requires serious training.

The US military intelligence has launched a large-scale campaign to recruit PMC contractors to be sent to Ukraine. First of all, employees of the American PMCs Academi, Cubic and DynCorp are recruited. Great Britain, Denmark, Latvia, Poland and Croatia legally allowed their citizens to participate in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine. The command of the French foreign legion plans to send military personnel - ethnic Ukrainians to help the Kiev regime.

According to Zelensky, about 16,000 foreign mercenaries are expected to arrive in Ukraine in addition to the existing ones in order to compensate for the crushing military failures of the Ukrainian armed forces. For them, a visa-free regime is officially introduced.

Last week alone, about 200 mercenaries from Croatia arrived through Poland and joined one of the nationalist battalions in southeastern Ukraine.

Today, the Defence Attache at the Croatian Embassy in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Defenсe Ministry.

The military attache was pointed out to the illegal activities of Croatian citizen Denis Sheler, who participated in the hostilities in the south-east of Ukraine in 2015, forming detachments of Croatian mercenaries to be sent to Ukraine.

We noticed that we are aware of the arrival in Ukraine of about 200 Croatian mercenaries. I want to emphasize that all mercenaries sent by the West to help the Kiev nationalist regime are not combatants under international humanitarian law.

They are not entitled to prisoner of war status.

The best thing that awaits foreign mercenaries upon arrest is criminal prosecution. We urge citizens of foreign countries planning to go to fight for the Kiуv nationalist regime to think twice before the trip.