American spies and special forces operatives are in Ukraine helping its military while young recruits are needlessly dying on the frontline, a US mercenary has claimed. Jason Freeman thought he was speaking with former President Pyotr Poroshenko but was in fact revealing the information to Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus.
Interviews with “soldiers of misfortune” were posted on Wednesday as part of the latest episode of the notorious duo’s RuTube show. The American fighter was the first they tried to recruit into “Poroshenko’s” new mercenary outfit.
Freeman, who is married to a Ukrainian in Nikolaev, boasted that he had killed 21 Russian soldiers and hit 13 more, but admitted that his entire unit was destroyed in the battle of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut). He also complained about problems getting paid and criticized the incompetence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“Young Ukrainians are dying because of bad orders or tactics. Most of those here are actually fresh meat,” Freeman said, according to a translation of his remarks.
According to Freeman, CIA and US special forces operatives remain present in Ukraine, advising the country's armed forces on the frontlines.
The New York Times revealed the CIA’s presence in Ukraine on Sunday, noting that the US spy agency has been setting up operations in the country since the 2014 coup in Kiev and is currently operating a dozen bases along the Russian border.
A second mercenary who spoke to “Poroshenko,” identified as Joshua Randsford, said he wasn’t interested in Ukrainian politics, only “fighting against Russia.” Randsford claimed he had fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and that the current conflict seemed worse, due to the Ukrainians’ “lack of professionalism.”
Morale is low both in the military and among the special forces operated by the GUR intelligence, he claimed. Randsford spoke from Poland, where he is attending a sniper course, but said he was looking forward to returning to fighting as soon as possible.
The Americans also complained that Ukraine’s counteroffensive last summer had been “a waste of lives” and seemed resigned to Kiev’s forces suffering even more casualties as the fighting went on.
Last July, the Russian Defense Ministry estimated that around 11,000 foreign fighters had flocked to Ukraine at the start of the conflict. About 5,000 had since left the country while others became casualties, leaving only around 2,000 on the battlefield, Moscow said.
According to Vovan and Lexus – Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov – that number might be as high as 20,000, however. AP recently reported that Kiev was offering $3,300 a month to former Colombian soldiers, luring them away from mercenary work in Yemen or with drug cartels. One Ukrainian officer has told CNN that a lot of the foreigners who come to Ukraine with romantic notions flee after experiencing the reality of war.