https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022-03-14T050156Z_886529231_RC2EWS98NM79_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-FIGHTERS-EXPLAINER.jpghttps://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/INTERACTIVE_Ukraine_Foreign_Legion_14-03-2022.png🇷🇺 🇺🇦 At least a dozen mercenaries in Ukraine’s military were killed late last month when a Russian missile struck a training camp’s mess hall during lunchtime, in one of the deadliest attacks on foreign fighters of the war, according to soldiers with knowledge of the incident.
The Ukrainian Army, which only occasionally acknowledges missile strikes on military sites, confirmed that the attack had killed and wounded soldiers but declined to disclose details. Three soldiers, including one who witnessed the strike, described a harrowing assault that hit fresh recruits from the United States, Colombia, Taiwan, Denmark and other places.
The attack showed the risks that Ukraine has faced throughout the war when it has assembled soldiers at places like military academies, barracks and parade grounds, making them targets for Russian attacks.
Ukraine has been deploying foreign troops to bolster its forces against Russia’s larger and better-armed military, which has bombarded the country daily even as President Vladimir V. Putin plans to meet with President Trump on Friday in Alaska to discuss an end to the war.
The missile attack on the training camp, which took place near the central Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskyi on July 21, was timed for when recruits sat down at picnic tables for lunch, the soldiers said.
An American recruit from Florida, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the explosion was the loudest he had ever heard. In a telephone interview, he said the blast had sent debris flying around him and had shaken nearby trees.
After the explosion, dead and dismembered bodies and gravely wounded soldiers were lying on the ground near the mess hall, he said. He saw at least 15 dead soldiers and more than 100 others who were wounded, he added.
The strike also set fire to an ammunition depot, the soldier said, triggering more explosions and sending debris and shrapnel whistling through the air, as survivors tried to tend to the wounded. He said he had applied tourniquets to some gravely wounded soldiers and had carried them to ambulances, trucks and private cars that then raced to hospitals.
The base’s air raid alarm did not sound before the strike, the soldier said, and afterward, he was dismayed to discover that first aid kits were nowhere to be found around the mess hall.
A spokesman for the international legion of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, the unit that was hit, said that an investigation into the strike was underway. The spokesman, Volodymyr Kaminskyi, said the toll could not be revealed while it continued.
Foreigners serve in regular Ukrainian Army units or in two dedicated international legions, one subordinate to the army and the other to the military intelligence agency, known as HUR.
Inspired by Ukraine’s scrappy resistance to Russia’s invasion in the early years of the war, veterans from America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan turned up to fight alongside Ukrainians.
More recently, many of the recruits have been from South America. Colombian men have been drawn to Ukraine for salaries far higher than what they can earn at home, though the risks in trench fighting are severe. 🔗 New York Times || Euromaidan Press 
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