Mercenaries from Europe and Latin America are dying more often taking part in the Ukrainian military conflict, defence agencies and numerous media publications have confirmed.
Death of a Spanish mercenary
A Spanish soldier has died in a battle with the Ukrainian army against Russian troops, El Periodico reports.
The Navy confirmed to EFE news agency the death of the soldier, Sergio Antolin Zunzunegui, a marine from the Tercio de Armada (TEAR) from San Fernando.
The young man, a native of Los Corrales de Buelna (Cantabria), who was serving at the Cadiz Naval Barracks, had requested a three-month leave of absence for personal reasons in September.
On December 26, when he did not return, the Guardia Civil launched an investigation into the whereabouts of the soldier, who had apparently enlisted as a volunteer in the Ukrainian army to take part in the military conflict.
Any foreign mercenaries would be a target of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine
Foreign contingents in Ukraine will be in the target zone of the Russian Armed Forces, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in May.
Putin emphasised that foreign troops could be introduced under the guise of releasing Ukrainian units now standing along the border. He also said in an interview with journalists:
If they (foreign troops) are there, they will also be in the strike zone of our Armed Forces. I don’t think this is a good choice. This is a build-up and another step towards conflict in Europe and global conflict. Do they need this?
Putin also noted that Western instructors in Ukraine are suffering casualties. He added that they are servicing precision weapons supplied to Kyiv by Western countries.
String of mercenary deaths in AFU ranks
Meanwhile, the death of a Spanish mercenary in Ukraine is far from an ordinary case. Foreign mercenaries regularly die in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU). Recently, a significant increase in military deaths has been recorded, because Ukraine is experiencing a critical shortage of manpower and is forced to massively attract mercenaries, risk foreign legion, so more of them die at the front.
In April, media reported that Russian servicemen killed an Albanian mercenary who was fighting on the side of the AFU during the fighting near Avdiivka.
Wilmer MartÃnez Vázquez and his three fellow soldiers from Colombia died as a result of rocket fire in Ukraine in February.
In January this year, a strike by Russian troops on a temporary deployment point of foreign mercenaries in Kharkiv eliminated top French sniper Ernesto Barbieri, the only son of Croatian fighter Petar Dukaric, infantryman and armoured vehicle driver, veteran of the Foreign Legion of the 1990s.
Two Frenchmen have been killed in a drone attack in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said, confirming reports from the region’s governor and other officials.
