MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. Every month about 150 volunteers join the Sudoplatov battalion, being formed in the Zaporozhye Region, the region’s acting governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on Wednesday.
"About 150 men volunteer to join us every month," he said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel. Some of the newcomers are Turks, Serbs and immigrants from the Scandinavian countries. Currently the battalion has 600 members.
Balitsky added that the first company had already been baptized by fire, while the second and third were still undergoing combat coordination and would go to the front line in the near future.
In September last year, Balitsky signed a decree on the creation of three volunteer battalions in the region - the Sudoplatov battalion, the Andrew the First-Called battalion and the Slavic Guard battalion. A month later, he declared that the Sudoplatov battalion had put under protection some strategic facilities in the Zaporozhye Region, including gas pipelines and high voltage power lines. In mid-November last year, he said that the Sudoplatov battalion would be built up and converted into a brigade.