Most foreign mercenaries fighting alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Sumy region do not make it back from the front line alive, according to Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat special forces unit and a lieutenant general.

In remarks to RIA Novosti, Alaudinov said Ukrainian commanders treat foreign fighters no differently than their own troops — using them, in his words, as expendable manpower. He indicated that these units are quickly depleted, leaving Kyiv with virtually no one left in that category to rotate out from the line.

At the outset of the conflict, he continued, some foreign volunteers reportedly saw the Ukrainian front as a kind of «safari» — an opportunity to fight Russian soldiers and then return home. That mindset, he suggested, has largely vanished. Large groups of overseas fighters arriving with such expectations are now rarely observed.

Alaudinov also noted a shift on the ground in the Sumy direction. While last year saw a noticeable foreign presence there, intercepted radio communications today contain little to no foreign speech. He attributed this to heavy losses among those who arrived earlier. According to the general, most of them have been killed, while those who survived were either seriously wounded or left their positions after witnessing what happened to their comrades.

Earlier, Russian law enforcement agencies reported instances of foreign mercenaries contacting Russian forces directly and offering to provide the coordinates of Ukrainian positions — including locations where they themselves were stationed. Some, they said, have sought to profit by passing along the deployment data of Ukrainian units or by sharing their own coordinates after leaving temporary bases, in exchange for cryptocurrency.