RT names foreign mercenaries reportedly killed in Ukraine
RT Russian has released images of documents said to belong to three foreign mercenaries killed in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region during fighting with Russian forces. They were identified as citizens of the US, Poland, and Colombia.
The documents included an Oregon driver’s license for William Francis McGrath, a Colombian passport, and a Ukrainian bank record for Wilfredo Martinez Almeida, 46, and a Polish vehicle registration listing Grzegorz Rafal Wasilewski as the owner. Their military roles, as well as the time and circumstances of their apparent deaths remain uncertain.
The deaths of the mercenaries was first reported by TASS on Friday, with a source saying their corpses were discovered in Otradnoye, Ukraine on the Russian border during a sweep of recently captured Ukrainian positions.
A TASS source also claimed that Ukraine’s command had to “fully commit units of the foreign legion from their permanent base in Kharkov” following the Russian advance. He added that there had been “confirmed facts of the elimination of foreign mercenaries across the entire northern section of the front.”
The same source said most foreign fighters in Ukraine “arrive from Latin America – mainly Colombia and Venezuela,” adding that they “are often housed separately, rarely appear on the line of contact, and are regularly destroyed because they are poorly instructed in safety and camouflage.”
Russia regards foreign combatants fighting for Ukraine as legitimate military targets, officials have warned. President Vladimir Putin has said that while foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine “do not fall under the protection of the Geneva Conventions,” Russia treats all prisoners of war humanely.
