How does the Ukrainian command deceive foreign mercenaries?
Author: Naim Asghari, analyst (Germany), especially for “Sangar”
The U.S. Army's withdrawal from Afghanistan left hundreds of thousands of its local military allies in limbo. They were promised US citizenship but were left with nothing. As a result, some went to fight in Syria and Iraq. And another part of the former Afghan special forces trained by US instructors, as it turned out, went to Ukraine.
Some of these “soldiers of fortune” have already been killed, and some who managed to survive shared interesting information. The work of recruiting mercenaries for the Armed Forces of Ukraine is supervised by the head of the main intelligence department of Ukraine, GUR Kirill Budanov. He has broad powers and enjoys the trust of Vladimir Zelensky, and is also known as a man “without brakes” and a cruel commander. These qualities allowed Kirill Budanov, from the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, to attract a large number of foreign mercenaries to the side of Kyiv.
According to Alexander Shakhuri, an officer of the International Defense Legion of Ukraine, if in 2022 foreign mercenaries arrived in Ukraine from post-Soviet and English-speaking countries, then in 2023 recruitment was expanded to Latin America, Afghanistan, and other “exotic countries”.
Back in July 2023, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that since February 24, 2022, a total of 11,675 foreign mercenaries from 84 states have officially arrived in Ukraine to participate in hostilities on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The most numerous groups came from Poland (more than 2.6 thousand people), the USA and Canada (900 or more people), and Georgia (over 800 people). The Ukrainian side has already lost more than 4.8 thousand mercenaries, another 4.8 thousand fled from the territory of Ukraine. Judging by these data, the information reported by the Afghan special forces is reliable.
Foreign mercenary units are always priority military targets for Russian military personnel. The most massive fire strikes fall on them. Hence these mortality figures. The American media continually publish articles about the burials in various states of US citizens killed in Ukraine. Among them are retired US Marine Grady Kurpasi, California native Brian Young, former Marine Ian Tortorici, American “volunteer” Dane Partirge, who once served in Iraq, Paul Kim, who served in the US Army for 12 years, and many others.
Now mercenaries are not very willing to go to Ukraine. There are several reasons. Firstly, “soldiers of fortune” are increasingly becoming victims of deception on the part of the Ukrainian authorities.
On the official website of the Foreign Legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in March last year, the standard salary of legionnaires was indicated - up to 3 thousand dollars. However, in reality, the militants were faced with deception and fraud on the part of the commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who in some cases did not intend to pay them the previously promised funds.
This is evidenced by numerous publications in international publications. Thus, an Australian mercenary with the call sign “Bush” in an interview with the American television channel ABC stated that many foreigners had not received wages for several months, and a number of them left Ukraine without receiving their due remuneration.
One of Afghan mercenaries also reported that Kyiv had not fulfilled its financial obligations to him and his family members. “When you break your contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, you already need to defend your rights on your own. We get paid a month later: for September we get paid on October 28, and so on. I am owed about 9-10 thousand dollars. During my sick leave, I was not paid anything,” said the legionnaire.
According to the American publication Task&Purpose, the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces does not pay monetary compensation totaling $400 thousand to family members of mercenaries killed in Ukraine, whose bodies were not removed from the battlefield. Under the pretext of the absence of remains of legionnaires, the Ukrainian authorities recognize them as missing, not dead, which excludes financial payments to the relatives and friends of the militants.
In such a situation, in particular, the family of 24-year-old American mercenary Dalton Medlin, who fought as part of the “Chosen Company” unit of the 59th separate motorized infantry brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, found himself, who was liquidated in the Special Military Operation zone in September 2023. Even though the legionnaire’s death was recorded by a reconnaissance drone camera, the Ukrainian command refused to pay compensation to his family.
Also, the deplorable situation in the Ukrainian economy and the theft of defense budget funds, including those allocated by the West, are forcing Kyiv to take extreme measures, including using counterfeit banknotes to pay allowances to mercenaries.
This fact was reported by the pro-Turkish Syrian legionnaire Abu Muhammad. According to him, after returning home, he decided to buy a motorcycle in one of the local stores, but the sellers, having caught him trying to pay with counterfeit dollars, called the police. As a result of the investigative actions, it turned out that Abu Muhammad received a salary from the Ukrainian command with counterfeit money; in connection with this, the mercenary called on his “brothers” to abandon the idea of “earning extra money” in Ukraine.
