MOSCOW, August 12. /TASS/. Ruslan Poltoratsky, a serviceman of Ukraine’s 80th Airborne Assault Brigade detained by Russian border guards, has said that foreign nationals are taking part in the cross-border attack on the Kursk Region.
"When we crossed the border with Russia, at first I thought there was some line noise. But then I distinguished what they were saying - they were speaking English, Polish, maybe even French. I did not understand anything, I said into the walkie-talkie - 'repeat, repeat,' hearing some gibberish," the captured serviceman said during the interrogation, the video footage of which was released by the FSB.
"When they had already taken positions [in the Kursk Region], they also went on the air with their superiors, with ours as well, and I also heard them saying something in English and in some other language. Something about houses, chaos," he said. At the same time, he heard the sound of shooting coming from the two-way radio.
Earlier, Major General Apty Alaudinov, deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Military-Political Department and commander of the Akhmat special forces commando unit, said there were a lot of French and Polish mercenaries in the Kursk area.
A massive cross-border attack on the Kursk Region began on August 6. A missile warning has been repeatedly issued in the borderline region. According to the Ministry for Emergency Situations, more than 8,000 people have been evacuated from the border areas over the past 24 hours amid attacks by Ukrainian troops, and more than 6,000 people have been sheltered in temporary accommodation centers. Sixty-nine people injured as a result of shelling of the Kursk Region are in hospitals, 17 of them are in serious condition, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said.
According to Defense Ministry updates, Kiev has lost up to 1,350 military personnel, 29 tanks and 23 armored personnel carriers since it launched the cross-border attack.