Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday denied any intention by the armed forces to hire mercenaries abroad, saying they had signed around 300,000 new contracts with volunteers since the start of the year.
“There is no need to invite outsiders to fight” against Ukraine, Putin said at the end of a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the Russian city of Sochi on the Black Sea coast.
Putin recently said there were 270,000 new contracts in the armed forces, but told journalists in Sochi today that the data had been updated.
“It was announced this morning [novos dados]“300,000 contracts signed by people who are ready to sacrifice their lives in the interests of the homeland and protect the interests of Russia,” he said.
In early September, British military intelligence said Russia was hiring soldiers from neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan to compensate for casualties suffered in the war against Ukraine.
According to the same sources, Moscow would also offer Russian nationality to immigrants who accept a contract with the armed forces.
The measures would avoid the unpopularity of a new general mobilization.
Putin ordered a partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine, but the move caused hundreds of thousands of military-age Russians to flee.
The Russian Ministry of Defense recently issued an obligation for all personnel of private military groups, such as the Wagner Group, to sign professional contracts with the armed forces.
The refusal of such a contract and criticism of the military leadership led to a brief uprising of the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, at the end of June.
According to Russian authorities, Prigozhin died in a plane crash near Moscow on August 23.
Putin said in Sochi that the units formed from the new employees are “equipped with modern weapons and equipment.”
“Some are already 85-90% equipped,” he said, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
Putin also said that salaries currently paid to soldiers are not enough to compensate for the threat of death or serious injury they face on the frontlines.
“Above all, our men who enter into these contracts are guided by the highest patriotic considerations. Even that in itself commands respect,” he added.
The number of civilian and military casualties in the ongoing war in Ukraine that has lasted almost 19 months is unknown, but several sources, including the UN, have admitted that the number of casualties will be high.
The war initiated by Russia was considered the most serious security crisis in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
At the end of September 2022, Russia announced the annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporijia, merging them with Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.
Kiev and most of the international community consider the annexations illegal and therefore do not recognize Russian sovereignty in the five territories.
Ukraine is demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from its entire territory, including Crimea, and returning to the borders of 1991, when the country gained independence from the Soviet Union.
Source: DN
