The Kremlin is moving to fill the thinned ranks of its army invading Ukraine with fighters from the Balkans, Caucasus, Syria and the Russia Far East, a Ukraine Army General Staff estimate and news reports said on Sunday.
The Russian Federation (RF) has opened fifteen recruiting centers in government-controlled sectors of Syria, and is actively seeking fighters to come to Ukraine. Their primary missions will be operating artillery and controlling the local (Ukrainian) population, the statement said. Reportedly, Moscow also is actively seeking Serbian mercenaries to join the fighting.
Besides foreign forces, the report said, the Kremlin plans to transfer portions of the Russian regular army “peacekeeping” force in Nagorno-Karabakh, and 800 men from a permanent RF base in Gyumri Armenia, the statement said.
Another 1,500 men from the RF’s 40th Separate Marine Infantry Brigade, based in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Russian Far East, is already on trains traveling to Belarus, the Ukrainian General Staff statement said. Kyiv’s source of this supposedly secret RF military information was not made public.
The Ukraine General Staff said the Kremlin has been forced to seek mercenaries and transfer units normally not part of main RF army deployments, because of crippling losses suffered by RF units already in Ukraine.
RF leadership has repeatedly stated Ukraine will be defeated without the RF’s having to resort to the politically (for Russia) sensitive measures of mobilizing reserves or sendng new draftees direct into battle in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied RF forces in Ukraine have suffered severe casualties, and has promised RF citizens there is no need to mobilize RF reserve forces.
The latest UAF estimate, issued today, placed the number of RF deaths in its war with Ukraine in excess of 13,000 men. The Kremlin earlier this week admitted slightly less than 500 service personnel have been killed in the fighting.
