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Diplomat comments on how issue of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine affects Russia-US ties

Sergey Ryabkov emphasized that an investigation of foreign mercenaries would establish the circumstances of "their arrival in the combat zone and the role they played there"

MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. The activities of foreign mercenaries fighting on the side of Ukraine are one of the most serious issues between Moscow and Western countries, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Friday.

"I can specifically comment on the topic because the circumstances of their arrival in Ukraine and the overall presence and activities of foreign mercenaries on the side of Ukraine’s Armed Forces and nationalist battalions are one of the most serious issues in our relations with the US and other Western counties," he said in response to a TASS question about Russia-US dialogue on American mercenaries in Ukraine.

Ryabkov emphasized that an investigation of foreign mercenaries would establish the circumstances of "their arrival in the combat zone and the role they played there."

"We have repeatedly warned people from countries unfriendly to Russia against making adventurous plans ‘to prove themselves’ on the battlefield in Ukraine but those who don’t take note of these warnings, are reaping the fruits of their misanthropy and their reluctance to grasp the reality, which exists in this region and which made the special military operation inevitable following the Kiev regime’s eight-year-long torment of Russian-speaking people," Ryabkov noted.

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Foreign policy Sergey Ryabkov

Military operation in Ukraine

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