Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - International Service: Earlier, Moscow said that Kiev is using the soldiers of other countries as cannon fodder to infiltrate Russian defense positions.

 

In an interview with CNN, Dmitry Kastyuk, a senior commander of the Ukrainian army, explained how his platoon, which is based near the city of Bakhmut, faced a shortage of manpower and made up for it by accepting 12 foreign mercenaries.

 

According to the senior Ukrainian army officer, some mercenaries join the army because they are attracted to the "adventures of war", while another group of them consider war as their "professional activity" or even because "it can be a It will be a good record in their resume.

 

"They don't understand what they're getting into," he said. A lot of people think our war is a gun-to-hand war, but they don't realize how much artillery is out there and you can be under fire all day every day and never see the enemy.

 

Foreign mercenaries, unlike Ukrainian citizens, are open to terminating their contracts with the military, and almost half of them say after seeing the state of the fighting, no, it's too intense, the officer said. This war is not the kind of war we expected.

 

He criticized the mobilization campaign by the Ukrainian authorities and the revelation of corruption scandals and desertions in this campaign and stated that Ukraine's attempt to force its citizens to join the army produces soldiers who are reluctant to fight.

 

The Russian military has repeatedly warned that foreign mercenaries employed by the Ukrainian military are considered a legitimate target for attacks, and Russia has carried out several long-range missile strikes on their training camps.

 

The Russian Ministry of Defense said in Moscow in July: "Kiev is recruiting foreign mercenary units for so-called meat grinder attacks on Russian positions, and in these attacks, the wounded soldiers are the last to leave the field."