Troops beheaded slain Polish fighters to hide their identities, lead investigator Aleksandr Bastrykin claims
Ukraine is trying to cover up its use of foreign mercenaries, and in some cases the bodies of dead fighters have been mutilated to make them harder to identify, a top Russian investigator has claimed.
The gruesome allegations were described by Aleksandr Bastrykin, the head of the Russian investigative commission, in an interview with TASS published on Monday. He said Ukrainian troops had even beheaded and cut off the hands of some foreign fighters who had already been killed.
“Several bodies of this type have been discovered in the area of the special military operation”, Bastrykin said. “Later, based on their cell phone records, it was established that the bodies belonged to Polish mercenaries.”
Allegations of deliberately mutilated corpses were made in late January by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group’s private military company. He reported that several bodies without heads or hands were found on the frontline near the town of Artyomovsk, known as Bakhmut in Ukraine.
“Due to heavy fighting, the enemy could not recover the bodies and tried to conceal their identity in this way,” Prigozhin said, adding that electronic devices found on the fighters would be handed over to Russian investigators.
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Kyiv has urged foreign nationals with military experience to fight for its cause and said thousands have volunteered to join its so-called International Legion. The Russian Defense Ministry has identified Poland as Kyiv’s biggest source of foreign personnel.
Russia views the fighters as mercenaries who must be prosecuted. According to Bastrykin, Ukraine generally pays foreign troops between $820 and $2,700 per month and tries to legalize their presence in the Ukrainian military.
“It is known that foreign citizens who have come [to Ukraine] as volunteers often enjoy a fast track to receiving Ukrainian citizenship and then joining the Ukrainian military to participate in combat actions,” said Bastrykin.
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