“Used as cannon fodder”: the United States and Ukraine spent $ 11 million on the maintenance of mercenaries of American PMCs

In early March, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, said that Western countries were sending “PMC contractors” to the combat areas.

The Ministry of Defense clarified that three American PMCs are recruiting to Ukraine: Academi (formerly BlackWater), Cubic and Dyn Corporation.

The first specializes mainly in ground operations.

The last two focus on consultation, exploration, and training. 

And at the end of March, photos were published on social networks proving the presence in Ukraine of mercenaries of another PMC - Forward Observations Group (FOG).

RT back in January 2022 wrote about their presence in Ukraine. 

On February 27, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced the recruitment of volunteers and the formation of the "Foreign Legion" to participate in hostilities.

A special website was created where anyone - even without combat experience - could apply. 

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• © Gerry Broom

The administration of Lviv, where they created a transshipment point for legionnaires, initially reported 20,000 applications from different countries.

According to the statistics of this site, it was visited by 1359 people from the USA.

However, in fact, only about a quarter of all comers made it to Ukraine.

According to the RF Ministry of Defense, as of April 17, 6,824 foreign mercenaries from 63 states were operating in Ukraine.

Among them are citizens of Lithuania, Latvia, Great Britain, and the USA.  

After successful attacks by Russian troops, the number of mercenaries decreased and amounted to 4877 people.

Konashenkov specified that 1035 mercenaries were killed, another 912 refused to participate in hostilities and fled the country.

A significant psychological role was played by a Russian missile attack on the Yavoriv training ground near Lvov, where several hundred legionnaires were stationed.

Demoralized volunteers from the United States and Great Britain then gave panicky interviews to the Western press that they had fared worse in Ukraine than in Syria and Iraq. 

A ticket for radicals

The exact number of American citizens who are employees of PMCs operating in Ukraine is unknown.

However, RT was able to establish their approximate number based on data from the Ministry of Defense and estimates of military experts. 

There are "about 1.5 thousand mercenaries ... from the United States, Canada, and also Romania" in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry reported in mid-April.

How many of these 1.5 thousand have US citizenship, the military department did not specify. 

The deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries, a specialist in the Syrian conflict, Vladimir Evseev, in a conversation with RT, estimated the number of American mercenaries at "two to three hundred." 

Oleg Krinitsyn, owner of the Russian PMC RSB-Group, which guards oil tankers in the Somali region, also speaks of "hundreds" of professional military personnel from the United States.  

“There are several hundred American instructors and professional military who operate in Ukraine,” Krinitsyn told RT. 

“You need to understand that the contingent is not permanent, specialists are rotated: they constantly arrive and then depart,” says retired GRU officer Alexander S. “I think the estimate of three hundred is close to reality.” 

RT has established that there are at least 84 US citizens in Ukraine.

Of these, 14 are FOG mercenaries, who took pictures with the whole group and posted the picture on the network.

About 20 more arrived mercenaries were reported by representatives of the nationalist battalion "Azov".

The two English-speaking instructors are seen in footage from the February 21 Euronews report;

The material reports that the Georgian Legion is trained by citizens of the United States and Great Britain.

On April 28, the Rybar Telegram channel published a list of names of mercenaries in the Foreign Legion found on the computer of the governor of the Nikolaev region Vitaly Kim.

According to him, another 48 Americans went as volunteers to the Georgian Legion.

Comparing this data with information from experts, RT estimates the size of the American contingent at about 300 people. 

Representatives of American PMCs neither confirm nor deny their participation in the conflict.

Academi founder Eric Prince said in an interview with American Fox News that back in December 2021 he presented a plan to US President Joe Biden "how to stop Putin."

According to Prince, he offered to send 140 decommissioned fighter jets to Ukraine, which would be flown by mercenary pilots. 

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US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken avoided a direct answer to the question about American mercenaries in Ukraine.

When asked about it, he said that the United States "for some time" clearly told "Americans who might be thinking about going there, don't go."

And he immediately added: if the Americans want to help Ukraine, "there are many ways to do it." 

“We regularly received information about the presence of foreign instructors, mercenaries and all kinds of military specialists (in Donbass.

).

Foreigners who have now gone to Ukraine are most often far-right extremists.

They are looking for opportunities to implement their radical ideas and gain military experience,” says Rodion Miroshnik, diplomatic adviser to the head of the LPR.

Mercenary daily allowance

In our estimates of the salaries of mercenaries, we relied on the opinions of independent researchers and military experts, the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and announcements on websites for recruiting military personnel to work on Ukrainian territory.

So, in early March, an announcement appeared on the job site for employees of PMCs and security organizations Silent Professionals about the recruitment of bodyguards with experience in service in special forces to work on the territory of Ukraine.

They were offered a fee from $1,000 to $2,000 per day.

Zelensky in early March announced the recruitment of former soldiers of elite units to protect against Russian troops, whom he promised salaries of up to $60,000 a month, The Eurasian Times reported.  

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According to the American PMC researcher Alex Kemerov, one working day of a mercenary from Academi costs the US budget $1.2 thousand. For comparison, a regular US army soldier costs taxpayers $150-190 per day. 

“If we take Iraq, where active hostilities were fought and where mercenaries from PMCs such as BlackWater operated, who ensured the activities of American troops, worked on convoys, protected diplomats, then on the road they received about $ 1 thousand per day,” the owner told RT PMC "RSB-Group" Oleg Krinitsyn. 

Similar prices in Ukraine are available only to elite units with especially valuable skills. 

“Instructors in Ukraine can really get up to $1,000 a day,” suggests Krinitsyn.

“Ordinary “warriors” can be paid up to $500 a day.” 

Based on these data, it can be assumed that the price of one professional hired military is $1,000 per day.

This is how much they can pay an instructor, a drone operator, a reconnaissance officer, or a specialist who wishes to personally participate in hostilities with extensive combat experience, knowledge of the region and language.

Most mercenaries can cost between $300 and $500 per day, depending on the military specialty, skills, and experience, for an average of $400 per day. 

There are less than a third of professional instructors and "elites" in Ukraine, suggests Alexander S. of the GRU.

If we assume that at least 100 out of 300 military personnel receive an “increased rate”, then one day of hostilities in Ukraine costs the employers of PMCs approximately $180,000. Then, for 61 days of hostilities, at least $10.98 million could be spent on their work. 

Most likely, these costs fall entirely on the American budget. 

“Ukraine is now unable to pay anything.

This means that either the Americans pay either under open or closed items (of the budget 

), or international organizations that the United States controls, - believes Vladimir Evseev, deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries.

“So it’s actually American money.” 

It is the United States that is in the lead in terms of the volume of military assistance provided to Ukraine.

As RT wrote, from 2014 to 2021, $3.3 billion was transferred to the Ukrainian side. 

Connected with the CIA

Retired GRU officer Alexander S. explained to RT that Dyn Corp and Cubic employees are more likely to be drone operators, satellite intelligence specialists, consultants or those who train Ukrainian pilots and military personnel than thugs with machine guns at the ready.

“Given the fact that these PMCs are engaged in intelligence activities, including using satellites, we can talk about their close connection with the CIA,” notes Alexander S. 

“It’s more correct to call them not mercenaries, but foreign military specialists,” Vladimir Evseev clarifies.

His words are confirmed by open data.

"Private" Dyn Corp can be called a stretch: up to 96% of its revenue was generated by defense orders from the US government.

Dyn Corporation generally began with the fact that it served the US Air Force - from 1946 it supplied its mechanics and technicians to air bases.

Since then, the main area of ​​work for DC has been aviation.

In 2020, Dyn Corp was taken over by another major US Department of Defense contractor, Amentum. 

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Cubic has representative offices in Georgia and Ukraine.

She trains law enforcement officers, collects intelligence and assists customers in their analysis. 

Cubic's corporate structure spans at least ten legal entities in the US, UK, Germany and Italy.

Cubic's parent organization is the Cubic Corporation, incorporated in the state of Delaware.

The laws of this state make it difficult for citizens of other countries to obtain documents and financial information about the organization, therefore, data on the total revenue of the entire group of companies for 2021 is not available. 

But RT managed to find out the income of the Cubic paramilitary unit in the UK.

According to Cubic Defense UK Ltd's latest update for 2020, the London division generated £16m in annual revenue. 

“One of Cubic’s key services is the so-called digital intelligence,” a military source familiar with the work of PMCs tells RT.

- They are able to track the movement of troops through satellites, drones, recognize military facilities and equipment.

I believe that those Cubic specialists who work in this area are in demand in Ukraine.” 

It is known that before the attack on South Ossetia in August 2008, its representatives trained Georgian soldiers to handle modern communications, electronic intelligence and satellite navigation.  

For reconnaissance tasks, it is not necessary to keep a large contingent, and most of these tasks can generally be performed by employees “remotely” from the United States, the RT interlocutor clarifies.

Clash with reality

Of the PMCs listed by the Ministry of Defense, Academi has the most notoriety due to its participation in ground operations and the use of illegal methods of warfare.

The company is notorious for its September 2007 Iraqi killing incident.

Then the Blackwater employees, who were guarding a diplomatic convoy of the US State Department, fired on the central square of Baghdad, which ended in the death of 14 and wounding of 18 Iraqi civilians (among the victims were children). 

Mercenaries for ground operations are recruited by a subsidiary of Academi called Greystone Limited, registered in Barbados.

She was already invited in 2014 by the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to “put things in order in the east of Ukraine.” 

With a high probability, now priority is given to Academi employees who already had experience in Ukraine. 

“Most likely, they invited, among other things, those “academicians” who took part in the battles for Volnovakha in 2015,” says another GRU officer who previously worked in the Ukrainian direction. 

Then the deputy commander of the corps of the Ministry of Defense of the DPR, Eduard Basurin, said that up to 70 Academi employees were deployed near Volnovakha, fighting on the side of Ukraine. 

To the list of "thugs" are added instructors from the fourth PMC - Forward Observations Group.

According to the British Morning Star, FOG has been training members of the far-right Ukrainian organization National Corps in the Sumy region of Ukraine since January 2022. 

FOG is one of the smallest bands that makes the loudest announcement of their presence in Ukraine.

FOG is a kind of “military IP”, which recruits volunteers from among other mercenaries into its ranks, and then disbands. 

• Gettyimages.ru

• © DekiArt

In January, RT released a large report on the work of FOG in eastern Ukraine.

They broadcast their activities widely on Instagram* and YouTube, posing with weapons in their hands and making cynical comments. 

An anonymous source from a security consulting company described FOG as a "very amorphous group" that shares "more or less entertaining content" while "people who are really involved come and go and do their own thing."

According to RT, FOG consists of US Army Rangers, Special Forces, representatives of the Delta Special Forces and Navy SEALs.

“They play all sorts of role-playing games in several parts of the US, with many of their encounters taking place in Vegas.

They have many connections in the industry, as well as with active military personnel, ”the source explained. 

The effectiveness of such units is lower than the employers expected, says Vladimir Evseev, deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries. 

“At the initial stage, they presented a problem,” the expert explained.

“The biggest danger was that militarily well-trained mercenaries could form sabotage groups that broke communications - attacked extended columns, for example.”

However, later, Yevseev continues, our convoys received helicopter and reconnaissance escort, and a network of agents appeared on the territory of Ukraine. 

“Own network of informants allows you to reveal the movements of mercenaries.

Foreigners are quite easy to figure out both in appearance and in speech, he says.

“After that, they could be hit or there were direct clashes.

Therefore, the effectiveness of PMCs has decreased.”

“As the regular army is knocked out, the role of mercenaries increases.

But on the other hand, what is happening, for example, in Mariupol, greatly reduces their motivation.

In Mariupol, mercenaries are actually used as cannon fodder, they don’t like it, and this also contributes to the outflow,” Evseev notes.

“They thought that they were the elite, like in 2014, that they would come, shoot, like on a safari, get money and leave.

But that didn't happen." 

“The effectiveness of mercenaries, even American ones, is rather low precisely in these conditions,” Oleg Krinitsyn, the owner of the PMC RSB-Group, agrees with him in absentia.

“They are hindered by the language barrier, the lack of motivation, the peculiarities of the conduct of hostilities.

If in Iraq they could, relatively speaking, drive into cities in armored vehicles and shoot local residents, then here they were faced with a trained Russian army, with heavy equipment - and in such conditions they begin to feel uncomfortable.” 

The idea that Chevekashniks will now come and change the vector of the war is “night fantasies,” Krinitsyn says. 

“If they came with their tanks, aircraft and air defense systems, then yes, they could create a problem,” the expert noted.

“But as long as it’s an ordinary living force, just speaking a different language, there’s nothing particularly cool about it.” 

* Meta product, activity recognized as extremist, banned in Russia by decision of the Tverskoy Court of Moscow dated 03/21/2022.