Vladimir Putin hiring foreign 'murderers' as Syrian and African militia head for Ukraine

dailystar.co.uk:

invasion of Ukraine turns into a grim and costly slog, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is looking to his overseas allies to reinforce his flagging army.

A video has emerged that appears to show a large group of Syrian mercenaries cheering as they prepare to ship out to Ukraine and Putin has announced that some 16,000 fighters from the Middle East will soon be deployed alongside Russian troops in Ukraine's Donbas region.

Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said the “volunteers” from the Middle East would be reinforcing pro-Russian separatists in the contested region of eastern Ukraine.“If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,” Shoigu said.Veterans of the bloodthirsty war in the Central African Republic (CAR), where members of Putin’s shadowy Wagner Division took part in a brutal crackdown on an insurrection against President Faustin Archange Touadéra’s government, are also on their way to Ukraine.In a video apparently shot in the Central African Republic that was shown on Russian TV, a group of masked men claim that they are preparing to join the Russian invasion force.One of the African soldiers shown in the clip says: “To our Russian fighting brothers, we are aware of what is happening in Ukraine.

Russian soldiers are carrying out military operations to bring peace and order in the face of Ukrainian nationalism."We African soldiers are ready to go to the side of our Russian brothers to support them.