Russians Claim to Have Destroyed Base Hosting ‘Foreign Mercenaries’ with Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles

Russian
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File
Jack Montgomery

The Russian military claims it has destroyed a Ukrainian base hosting “foreign mercenaries” with warship-launched cruise missiles.

“During the night, high-precision sea-based missiles destroyed the headquarters and base of Dnepr nationalist battalion in Zvonetskoe, Dnepropetrovsk Region, where foreign mercenaries had recently arrived,” claimed Major-General Igor Konashenkov, the Russian defence ministry’s chief spokesman, in one of his regular social media briefings.

Ukraine has recruited volunteers from the West in large numbers, along with Chechen dissidents and other foreign fighters, whom the Kremlin regard as mercenaries — although the Russians are themselves luring thousands of Arabs, chiefly Syrians, to join their invasion force with the prospect of superior pay.

Konashenkov also claimed that “[h]igh-precision air-based missiles” had destroyed a number of Soviet-era S-300 anti-aircraft missile launchers — the same system Slovakia is donating to Ukraine in exchange for U.S. Patriot missiles — although the Associated Press noted that these “Russian military claims couldn’t be independently verified” on Saturday.

The Russian officer further claimed that his country’s armed forces had downed eight drones and struck a number of Ukrainian ammunition depots, command posts, fuel depots, and 49 military strong points, although this is similarly unverified.

Moscow is believed by Britain’s Ministry of Defence and other Western government entities to be shifting its focus to the Donbas (Donbass) and Black Sea coastline in Ukraine’s south-east, after sustaining significant losses in the Kyiv (Kiev) region in the north and retreating most of the way back to Ukraine’s pre-invasion frontiers.

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