MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/. Instructors from NATO countries are acting as anti-retreat units in the Ukrainian army, Andrey Mordvichev, commander of Russia’s Battlegroup Center, said on Sunday.

"We hear mercenaries on air, we see mercenaries. Prisoners tell us about mercenaries. Each company [of the Ukrainian army] has up to 10 such people: mostly from Baltic countries and Georgia. <…> They act as instructors and as anti-retreat units," he said in an interview with he Soloviov Live television channel.

The Russian defense ministry said on July 10 that more than 11,000 mercenaries had arrived in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation and nearly 5,000 of them had been killed.