Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has called for foreign volunteers to be able to fight against Ukrainian forces.
Speaking at a Russian Security Council meeting, Mr. Putin averred those who want to volunteer in fighting with Russia-backed forces should be allowed to.
Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to fight alongside Russia-backed forces. However, US officials forecast that these volunteers could include Syrians skilled in urban combat.
Moscow is a long-standing ally of Syria and Mr. Putin is a key backer of Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, in the country’s civil war.
“If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,” Mr Putin told his Defence Minister, adding that “Please do this”.
Mr. Shoigu on the other hand proposed handing over captured Western anti-tank missile systems to Russian-backed rebel fighters in the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region.
The televised Security Council meeting move came as Russian forces in Ukraine began attacking new targets in different areas of the country, comprising an airfield and jet engine factory on target in Lutsk, which is in the northwest of Ukraine. Officials of the Russian Defence disclosed that explosions also hit airfields at Ivano-Frankivsk, in the southwest.
In Dnipro, which is a major stronghold in central-eastern Ukraine, one person was reported dead in air strikes whereas the fighting is driving increasing numbers of people to flee the country, with refugees now over 2.5 million.
According to the Wall Street Journal, US officials noted that Russia has recently been recruiting fighters from Syria, hoping their expertise in urban warfare can help take Kyiv, a bid to deal a devastating blow on the Ukraine government.
At the same time, US Private Security firms are seeking to recruit former soldiers to help evacuate people from Ukraine. Foreign fighters, including former and current British army personnel, are also arriving in Ukraine to fight for the government in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, recently said that 16,000 foreigners have volunteered for the cause, as part of what he called an “international legion”.
In the latest developments
The Ukrainian military has disclosed that Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, risks being surrounded as Russian forces are moving in on areas north and west of the capital, with some of its suburbs heavily bombarded. Three other major cities are effectively surrounded.
A kindergarten and an apartment block were hit in the first airstrikes on the central city of Dnipro, with at least, one person killed in the process.
Officials disclosed that a care home for disabled people near Kharkiv in the east was also hit while it accommodated about 330 people in the building at the time.
Aid convoy attacked
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in an address to Ukrainians said trucks carrying food and medicine to the besieged port of Mariupol in the south, which has been without water and power for 11 days, were attacked by Russian tanks.
The city’s Mayor intimated it is being shelled “every 30 minutes”, with 1,200 civilians already dead.
Hospital bombing ‘staged’- Moscow
The Russian Army claims the deadly bomb attack on Mariupol’s children’s hospital was “staged” by Ukraine, but failed to provide any evidence to support its claim.
According to Ukraine authorities, at least 71 children are dead with more than 100 wounded since the Russian invasion began on Thursday, February 24, 2022.
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