Putin’s mandate: Facilitate sending ‘volunteer’ fighters from Middle East to Ukraine

LAST UPDATE: 12:48

Russian President Vladimir Putin today ordered his army to facilitate the deployment of “volunteer” fighters to Ukraine in response to what he says is a “mercenary” mission from the West.

“If you see that there are people who want to go there voluntarily and do it not for money, but to help those living in Donbass (in eastern Ukraine), then we should give them what they want and help them go. “in the battle zone,” said Vladimir Putin, responding to a proposal from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

According to Putin, this is justified by the fact that “the Western contractors of the Ukrainian regime do not even hide” and openly gather “mercenaries from all over the world to send them to Ukraine.”

Russia has been accused for years of recruiting mercenaries, such as the Wagner group, and deploying them in conflict zones.

He is also widely accused of forming the pro-Russian separatist armed insurgency in Donbass, eastern Ukraine, in 2014.

Shoigu said there were about 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to go to war with Russian-backed forces in the separatist Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

Putin also said today that he approved the handover of confiscated Western missile systems to Russian-backed separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.

Shoigu suggested handing over US-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems, such as the Javelin and Stinger, seized by the Russian military in Ukraine, to fighters in the Luhansk and Donetsk separatist regions in the east of the country.

Putin, who made the remarks during a meeting of the Russian Security Council, said he supported the idea.

“As for the delivery of weapons, especially Western-made ones, which have fallen into the hands of the Russian army, I certainly support the possibility of giving them to the military units of the Luhansk and Donetsk democracies,” Putin said.

“Please do it,” he told Soigu.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 shortly after Putin recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk breakaway regions as independent state entities, in a move that was internationally condemned as illegal.

According to Moscow, its “special military operation” in Ukraine was a forced response to what it described as a Ukrainian genocide against Russian-speakers in the east of the country – a pretext that rejected Kyiv and the West as an unfounded war. propaganda.

Shoigu noted that the Russian army plans to strengthen its western border, following what he says is an increase in Western military units on Russia’s border.

The Russian president asked him to propose military rearrangements on Russia’s western border, in response to those of NATO in Eastern Europe.

“As for the strengthening of our western borders due to the actions adopted by the NATO countries (…) this needs to be studied, I ask you to prepare a report for me,” he told Soigu during a meeting of the Russian Security Council. .

NATO member states have deployed thousands of troops in central and eastern Europe in response to Russian military intervention in Ukraine to bolster their eastern flank, while Russia has called for the alliance to withdraw.

Among NATO countries, Poland and the three Baltic states border Russia. Ukraine also borders Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

One of Russia’s reasons for attacking Ukraine was the fear of seeing its neighboring country join NATO, whose successive enlargements are considered by Moscow to be an existential threat.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

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