Foreign mercenaries in Ukraine (Photo: International Territorial Defense Corps of Ukraine).
A Russian attack on a building in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov on January 16 left 60 mercenaries dead, most of them French nationals, Sputnik reported.
According to Ukrainian intelligence sources, Donbass Insider Editor-in-Chief Christelle Neant told RT that “several wounded French speakers were taken to hospital” in Kharkiv.
Neant said Kiev used foreign mercenaries "mainly for propaganda purposes" and that the French in Kharkiv could be the force instructing Ukraine on how to use Western-supplied weapons.
Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, said the presence of armed Frenchmen in Ukraine's second-largest city had raised speculation about who they were working for.
Mr Ritter said the Russian attack was likely to expose France's secret direct involvement in NATO's proxy war against Russia.
“If you are fighting on the Ukrainian side, regardless of your nationality, you are now a legitimate target (of Russia),” Mr. Ritter said.
Mr. Ritter focused on two key aspects of the attack, which he said showed that Russian military planners no longer distinguished between foreign mercenaries and Ukrainian soldiers.
“Russia has shown no hesitation in eliminating foreign mercenaries fighting on behalf of the Ukrainian army,” Mr. Ritter said.
The appearance of the mercenary group also suggests that the French military may have become directly involved in the Ukraine conflict.
“At least some of these French speakers were not mercenaries, but actually soldiers in the French armed forces, that is, soldiers working for the French government, who went to Ukraine on the orders of the government. And now they are dead,” the former US officer explained.
The new Russian policy, experts argue, is a clear contrast to Moscow’s previous wariness of those considered NATO military “advisers” or other NATO personnel in Ukraine. It also represents a change in tactics, targeting all opposing forces in Ukraine.
"They have not been taken out in significant numbers, although with current Russian intelligence, it is likely that Russia knows where they are and could attack at any time. This shows that Russia has made a decision that: all forces in Ukraine now have the same fate," Mr. Ritter commented.
The broader implication of the attack is that Russia is in a “game to the end” to bring down the Ukrainian armed forces.
“This means that Russia is targeting all forces including the Ukrainian army, foreign mercenaries and any NATO military members on Ukrainian territory,” the US expert added.
Earl Rasmussen, an expert at the Eurasia Center, said the attack in Kharkiv could be a message to Ukraine that Russia will not treat Western fighters differently from Ukrainian fighters.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Kiev had increased the recruitment of mercenaries to hide the heavy losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the counteroffensive, according to Sputnik . Ukraine is reportedly trying to recruit militants in the United States and Canada, with the help of US intelligence, as well as in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
Thousands of foreign mercenaries have arrived in Ukraine to fight alongside the Ukrainian army since Russia launched a special military operation in February 2022. The Russian Defense Ministry said nearly 6,000 of the 13,500 foreigners who went to fight in Ukraine have died and more than 5,600 have returned home.
The Russian Defense Ministry has accused Western governments of encouraging their citizens to join the fight against Russian troops in Ukraine as mercenaries. Moscow has declared zero tolerance for mercenaries in Ukraine. Russia has also repeatedly announced airstrikes against foreign mercenary training centers in Ukraine.
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