Putin Orders Deployment Of Mideast 'Volunteers' To Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that so-called volunteer fighters should be brought into Ukraine, where thousands of Russian and Belarussian troops have been slaughtered after Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Photo Insert: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu

Earlier, Nikkei reported that the “volunteers” would be receiving $400 a week, perhaps as high as the salaries of Chechnya fighters sent to Ukraine that were battered by Ukrainian infantry and special forces.

On the other hand, UK’s Mail Online, Reuters, Kyodo, and CNN reported that up to 20,000 foreigners with combat experience had registered to serve in Ukraine. A total of 66,000 Ukrainians living overseas had also returned home and trained for warfare.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia knew of “more than 16,000 applications” from countries in the Middle East, many of them from people who he said helped Russia against the Islamic State (IS) group, according to a Kremlin transcript.

They want “to take part in what they consider a liberation movement,” Shoigu said, on the side of Russia-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

Since 2015, Russian forces have backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against various groups opposed to his rule, including IS.

Putin told Shoigu that Russia should help would-be volunteers to “move to the combat zone” and contrast them with what he called foreign “mercenaries” fighting for Ukraine, many of whom have shunned compensation.

The deployment of foreigners to fight Putin’s war in Ukraine has added more substance to claims that up to 11,000 Russian troops may have been killed since Feb. 24 and thousands more have surrendered rather than die in battle.

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