DONETSK, January 23. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military has reinforced its battlegroup in the Donetsk area with US and British mercenaries, a spokesman for people’s militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told TASS on Monday.

"According to our information, the battlegroup in the Donetsk area already included a foreign contingent and has now been replenished by American and British mercenaries," the spokesman said.

Some data suggest that there are several foreign groups in the Ukrainian battlegroup in that area distributed among different sectors of the front line, he added.

The DPR people’s militia spokesman told TASS earlier on Monday that Ukrainian servicemen and Polish mercenaries operating in the Gorlovka area had begun ever more frequently to engage in verbal squabbles that could be heard during their radio communications. German mercenaries are also positioned in that area, according to the latest data, he said.

Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) retired Lieutenant-Colonel Andrey Marochko said in late November that Ukrainian military personnel were fuming over Polish mercenaries’ attitude towards them and their privileges.

In December last year, acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin told TASS that the Ukrainian military was redeploying a large number of mercenaries to the area of the communities of Svatovo, Kremennaya and Artyomovsk.

DPR People’s Militia Lieutenant-Colonel Andrey Bayevsky told TASS that the number of foreign mercenaries in the Ukrainian army had increased to a level that allowed them not only to perform the functions of commanders but also to operate personally at firing positions. This was largely due to the fact that Ukrainian servicemen lacked the skills needed to operate Western-supplied weapons, he noted.

Acting Head of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) Leonid Pasechnik told TASS in late December that thousands of mercenaries from over 50 countries were fighting on the Kiev regime’s side in the zone of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and some of them had been fighting since 2014.