A Russian strike on a training camp near the central Ukrainian city of Kropivnitsky on July 21 has been confirmed to have caused over 100 casualties among foreign fighters, who were gathered for lunch at the time of the attack. An American fighter, who spoke to the New York Times on condition of anonymity, reported that combatants from the United States, Denmark, Colombia, and Taiwan were among those hit. The training camp was set up by Ukrainian military intelligence, which acknowledged successful Russian strikes at the time. Although the Russian Defence Ministry mentioned striking the positions of Ukrainian forces, Neo-Nazi paramilitaries and foreign contractors at 142 locations on July 21, it did not specifically confirm the strike on the camp near Kropivnitsky. Nevertheless, the Russian Armed Forces have specifically singled out the positions of foreign fighters for targeting for over three years since the outbreak of full scale hostilities in February 2022.
Foreign fighters have consistently been singled out for Russian precision strikes, with their value on average being significantly higher than those in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While lower level contractors drawn from less developed countries such as Brazil and Colombia cost orders of magnitude more for Ukraine’s Western backers to finance than Ukrainain conscripts, the value of higher level foreign fighters, particularly those from more developed countries tasked with operating much of the more complex hardware being used by Ukrainain forces, is far higher still. Russian government sources highlighted the significant benefits of targeting such personnel in January 2024, after a strike on the headquarters of European contractors that month caused at least 80 casualties, 60 or more of which were deaths. These personnel were “highly trained specialists who work on specific weapons systems too complex for the average Ukrainian conscripts,” according to Russian state media reports, with their neutralisation having “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.
The significant presence of foreign contractors has been reported from multiple battlefields in the Russian-Ukrainian War, from Kursk to Bakhmut, with the importance of specialist contractors providing support with technology has grown Western armaments in the Ukrainian inventory has expanded, ranging from Patriot missile systems to Abrams tanks which there has not been sufficient time to train Ukrainian personnel to use fully independently. In July it was reported that contractor personnel from Brazil and Colombia had bolstered the Ukrainian Army’s 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade, and were involved in ongoing fighting in the Sumy region.
In May Russian Armed Forces officer reported that contractors from Colombia and Poland were playing a particularly important role in hostilities in Sumy, with “natives of Great Britain, Poland and even Japan” also being involved. This earlier report was made at a time of intensifying hostilities as Russian Army units had advanced within 20 kilometres of the regional capital. Contractor groups which have made significant contributions to the war effort have included the American Forward Observations Group and the Polish Volunteer Corps. Active duty personnel from Western militaries, such as the British Royal Marines, have also been deployed for combat operations in Ukraine.