DISINFO: A US Army Lieutenant Colonel was killed in Ukraine
SUMMARY
A US Army Lieutenant Colonel died in Poland. The information about the death of Joshua Camary appeared after the recent Russian massive missile strike on Ukraine. Many people suspect that the American officer might have been eliminated there and his corpse was sent to Poland.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative claiming that the Western mercenaries are directly present in Ukraine.
A 45-year-old American officer, Joshua Camary, was found dead in an apartment in the Polish city of Poznań on Tuesday 3rd September. At the present moment, specialists are investigating the reasons for his death, but the preliminary conclusion is that he died of natural causes. The claim that this person was killed in Ukraine is unsubstantiated and designed to paint the picture that Western countries such as the US and other NATO member states are directly involved on Kyiv's side in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine has called on experienced foreign nationals to join its foreign legion, whose members are regular soldiers of the Ukrainian Army as opposed to mercenaries.
In the event that such soldiers would become prisoners of war, as pointed out by experts, the nationality of the soldier is not an issue:
“Combatants are members of the armed forces of a party to the conflict or volunteers corps incorporated therein. According to the ICRC Commentary to Article 4, the requirement for membership in the armed forces, or the incorporation of the volunteer corps, is a matter of domestic regulation. But the incorporated unit must be a professional fighting force, fulfilling the criteria spelled out in Article 4A(2) of GC III, and be subordinate to the regular army command. The fact that an individual is a national of a third State and not a national of the armed forces in which they are serving is widely considered to be irrelevant when it comes to determining combatant or POW status.”
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