Izvestia: Russian missile strike pushes Kiev to stop recruiting mercenaries
On March 14th, a Russian newspaper revealed that the Ukrainian authorities stopped recruiting foreign volunteers in the so-called International Regional Defense Corps, after a Russian missile strike that killed a number of them.
“The decision to suspend the recruitment of mercenaries was taken after the Russian army managed, with a missile strike, to eliminate about 180 foreign mercenaries in one of the bases in western Ukraine,” RIA Novosti news agency quoted the newspaper (Izvestia) as saying.
The newspaper clarified that information about the suspension of the recruitment of French fighters was confirmed in particular by Hugo Pellegrini, one of the main organizers of the recruitment of mercenaries to Ukraine.
The spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, announced yesterday that the Russian armed forces had neutralized up to 180 foreign mercenaries and a group of foreign weapons with strikes on centers in the military training ground in Yavorovsky.
O. al-Mohammad