Foreign mercenaries fighting alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporozhye Region try to avoid small-arms combat and retreat when Russian units move closer, according to a rifleman from Russia’s Vostok group of forces with the call sign Shakh.

Shakh told RIA Novosti that Polish and Colombian fighters had been encountered, as well as mercenaries from Germany. According to him, they were identified mainly by blue tape and tended to withdraw rather than engage Russian troops in close-range firefights.

Captured Ukrainian servicemen have also spoken about differences in identification markings. Shakh said that during interrogations they described yellow tape as a marker used by mobilized Ukrainian troops, while blue tape was worn by foreign mercenaries.

Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Akhmat special forces and deputy head of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, had earlier given a harsh assessment of foreigners fighting on the Ukrainian side.

In comments to TASS, Alaudinov expressed hope that mercenaries taking part in the fighting would not return home alive and would remain on the land where they had come to fight. He also said that from the beginning of the special military operation he had viewed such fighters as people who had deliberately traveled there to kill Russians.

According to Alaudinov, some of the foreign fighters had expected their participation in the hostilities to become a kind of «safari.»