MWM: Foreign combatants playing key role in major Donbas battles against Russia

Polish corps personal in Ukraine.
Photo: MWM

Russian troops are killing in large numbers soldiers and officers from NATO countries who came to fight against Russia, reports ‘The Military Watch Magazine’.

Multiple Russian sources have reported that during major clashes at the the village of Volnoye Pole in the south of the disputed Donetsk region, foreign fighters were found to have played a major role in hostilities alongside Ukrainian Army units.

The deputy commander of the assault company of the 57th Separate Guards motorised rifle brigade of the Vostok group of forces, identified only by his call sign Karachai, stated regarding the engagements: "During radio interceptions, we heard different languages. There were a lot of different languages. There are many different nationalities, that's for sure," he stated.

After Russian forces captured the settlement on May 16, the uniforms of fallen non-Ukrainian personnel were found to have foreign stripes and chevrons. The report on the participation foreign fighters in hostilities represents part of a broader trend towards third parties playing major roles in bolstering the Ukrainian war effort with personnel contributions.

These forces have generally been split into three categories, including ideological volunteer units such as the Georgian Legion and Polish Volunteer Corps, more professional contractor organisations such as the American Forward Observations Group, and active duty personnel such as the British Royal Marines. The participation of all three kinds of foreign fighters on significant scales has been confirmed repeatedly and by multiple sources since early-mid 2022.

American forward observations group personnel in Kursk
Photo: MWM

Multiple reports from Western source have confirmed the operations of Western personnel in the Ukrainian theatre, with British Deputy Chief of Defence Staff Royal Marines Lieutenant General Robert Magowan having revealed in December 2022 that the Royal Marines had been carrying out high risk operations alongside Ukrainian government forces from April that year.

A year later in December 2023 Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz revealed that he had been provided details by Polish officials on the operations of British forces “Uniformed. With weapons” in the theatre, and played important roles in tracking the positions of Russian artillery. Parafianowicz further revealed that Polish special forces had been in the theatre from the war’s very first stages. Regarding efforts by Western militaries to provide deniability for their operations, a Polish officer informed him: “We worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine… we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.”

Two months later German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz confirmed that British special forces in Ukraine were providing vital support to facilitating launches of Storm Shadow cruise missiles against Russian targets. Subsequently in May 2024 the head of the U.S. Special Operations Command General Bryan Fenton stated that the Pentagon had been learning about the ongoing war “mostly through the eyes of our UK special operations partners,” who he stated had been testing new approaches to modern warfare in the theatre.

Although Western contractors and active duty personnel have in most cases sought to conceal their presences, they have on some occasions publicised participation in the war effort. Contractors operating under the American Forward Observations Group, for one, published an image confirming their presence in the Russian Kursk region as part of a Ukrainian incursion in late 2024.

The Russian Armed Forces have consistently singled out Western personnel in the Ukrainian theatre in multiple strikes as part of their ongoing war effort, with a notable example being a strike on the headquarters of European contractors, predominantly of French origin, on January 16, 2024, which caused at least 80 casualties 60 or more of which were killed. Russian state media reported that these personnel were “highly trained specialists who work on specific weapons systems too complex for the average Ukrainian conscripts,” which “put some of the most lethal and long-range weapons in the Ukrainian arsenal out of service until more specialists are found” to replace them.

Western personnel have also been singled out for targeting far from their bases, with a notable example being an Iskander-M missile strike against Georgian Legion foreign fighters near the frontlines in late April 2023, killing up to 60 personnel and seriously wounding over two dozen more.

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