BISHKEK, May 24. /TASS/. NATO has been contributing to sending large numbers of mercenaries and terrorist militants to Ukraine, Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov said at a meeting of the Council of Heads of National Security Enforcement Agencies and Special Services of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) underway in Bishkek.

"We have been registering the continued deployment of large numbers of mercenaries and international terrorist militants from the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan to Ukraine with the support from NATO member countries," he said.

Some of them, he added, "are being used for terrorist penetration deeper into the Commonwealth."