DISINFO: Foreign mercenaries are engaged in the Kursk invasion
SUMMARY
The Russian authorities closely monitor the role of foreign mercenaries in the recent terrorist attack in Kursk, compiling lists of names and documenting their crimes. Civilians in the region report aggressive behaviour from mercenaries speaking Georgian, Polish, and English. This scrutiny highlights a significant contradiction to Western claims of non-involvement in the actions of Ukrainian neo-Nazis against Russia.
RESPONSE
A pro-Kremlin narrative asserting that the Ukrainian advance in the Kursk region is driven by foreign mercenaries committing atrocities against civilians. This claim aligns with a recurring, already discredited pro-Kremlin narrative about the significant presence of Western ‘mercenaries’ in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
This example can be seen as hate speech, as it highlights various nationalities (English, Polish, and Georgian in this case) and associates them with fictitious yet serious war crimes.
On September 16 2024, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha announced that he had directed his Ministry to invite the UN and the ICRC to operate in the Kursk region. The Ministry later confirmed that it had submitted these requests.
Furthermore, Ukraine invited experienced foreign nationals to join its foreign legion, where they serve as regular soldiers, not mercenaries, and receive the same pay as Ukrainian troops. Those who opt out of a formal contract join volunteer battalions without material benefits, motivated by personal and ideological reasons to defend Ukraine's independence.
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”.
The myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine has been the cornerstone of Russian disinformation about the country since the very beginning of the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests, when it was used to discredit the pro-European popular uprising in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine's foreign policy. Far-right groups enjoyed a very limited presence during the Euromaidan itself and had poor results in the 2019 election cycle, falling short of the 5% minimum guaranteeing entry into parliament. Read our analysis on this disinformation claim titled "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
Read similar cases claiming that in the Kursk region, up to 20% of the Ukrainian forces are confirmed to be foreign mercenaries, that the EU, US, and NATO use Ukrainians as cannon fodder and that the proxy war of the West against Russia started with the Maidan coup in 2014.