PHOTO CORRECTION: Russian mercenaries deploy to eastern Ukraine - sources We will delete a previous tweet containing an incorrect photo
In recent weeks, Russia has moved tens of thousands of regular troops to staging posts closer to Ukraine and followed up by demanding urgent security guarantees from the West designed, Moscow says, to prevent Ukraine and other neighbouring countries being used as a base to attack it.
He said he had previously fought in Ukraine and Syria for groups of Russian security contractors whose operations have been closely aligned with Russia's strategic interests. He declined to identify the contractors. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: "It's the first we've heard of this and we don't know how reliable these assertions are."
One of the sources, a contractor who has taken part in Russian operations abroad and had already arrived in eastern Ukraine, said the deployment was for defensive purposes. The first mercenary said the same.
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