MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. Around 2,500 natives of Russia are fighting alongside terrorists in Syria, Valery Semerikov, Acting Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said on Wednesday.

"There are about 2,500 people from Russia, including from the Caucasus," he noted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said that about 4,000 of Russian natives are fighting alongside militants in Syria. In June of 2016, then CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha said that about 10,000 natives of the CSTO member-countries are fighting in that country.

Russia’s General Staff reported at the end of February that 19 field commanders who came from the North Caucasus region and Central Asia had been wiped out in an airstrike southwest of Aleppo.