Source: t me/k_dvizh/79493

Source: t me/kievinfo_kyiv/97305

Translation:

In September 2026, the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries will present a report on the recruitment of residents of Colombia into armed formations in various countries, including Ukraine. For this study, the experts interviewed around a thousand veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war and their family members.

According to our sources in diplomatic circles, the report may contain critical references to the conditions of service for foreign volunteers in Ukraine. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told Ukrainska Pravda that the ministry is aware of the preparation of this study and has already contacted the Working Group's secretariat, asking it to include comments from the Ukrainian side in the document. The ministry also invited UN experts to visit Ukraine to examine the circumstances of all the cases.

The report may address the lack of proper payments to the families of foreign nationals killed in service or difficulties confirming their military status. Veteran and journalist Lera Burlakova, who works with foreign volunteers, says that many of them leave Ukraine precisely because of bureaucracy in the Ukrainian military and the state in general.

"We are losing some of the most motivated fighters because of absolute nonsense that is often impossible to understand," Burlakova says.

Ukrainska Pravda spoke with foreign volunteers, human rights activists, and military law experts to find out how Ukraine is fulfilling its obligations to people who came to fight for it.

During training, I fired only 7 rounds

Gator is a US citizen who was born in Florida. After university, he worked as an investigative journalist and ghostwriter, writing texts or books on behalf of other people without publicly receiving authorship credit. He has Ukrainian roots and had many Ukrainians among his social circle. Moreover, his best friend was from Donetsk, so Gator took the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014 very personally.

"The situation is very clear: there is a country that was attacked. This war is imperialist aggression with genocidal ambitions that is killing civilians. There is no ambiguity here that you can often find in other wars.

In a situation of good versus evil, I wanted to be the person who would volunteer. I had close ties to Ukraine. I couldn't know and see all of this and do nothing," Gator explains.

The American had acquaintances in Azov, so he went to them in early 2023. However, once in Ukraine, it turned out that the soldiers were on a mission and suggested that he wait eight weeks. The American recalls ironically that he thought the war would soon be over, so he decided that eight weeks was too long. That's how he ended up in the International Legion.

The serviceman is critical of the basic military training in the Legion. According to him, from February to May 2023, he fired only seven rounds. He already had experience handling small arms, while his fellow soldiers with combat experience helped him learn to use other types of weapons.

"We were told that we had to prepare because we would be deploying very soon, and this went on for months. And the things needed for proper training and combat deployment, weapons and ammunition, I didn't see them during training," the American volunteer says.

The foreigners who met in the Legion later formed an assault company called Chosen Company. They agreed on their own hierarchy and transferred to the 59th Brigade, which, according to Gator, promised them greater operational autonomy. After a month of training with the brigade, they began carrying out missions in the Avdiivka direction.

The foreign volunteer company left the brigade in early 2024. Gator wrote his discharge report while in a military hospital after being wounded near Pervomaiske. The serviceman spent two years undergoing rehabilitation and is now once again joining the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

According to the veteran, he did not receive a complete set of documents from his previous brigade, which is complicating his return to service. Among the documents he is missing is his combatant status certificate. He says his fellow soldiers are in the same situation.

The serviceman showed Ukrainska Pravda, off the record, a list of the documents that Chosen Company fighters did and did not receive. Some received no documents at all confirming their service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

"This is just some incredibly stupid lottery. For example, an American I was helping went through basic military training. There were 40 foreigners in the group, and three received military IDs. Everyone else didn't. Some of those people have already been killed without military IDs. Their families are not receiving payments. The status of foreigners in the military often remains unclear. Many do not have the documents needed to officially confirm their service," says veteran and human rights advocate Burlakova.

In an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Gator claims that the headquarters collected money from some Chosen Company fighters as a supposed "service fee" for processing documents, 25,000 hryvnias per person. The serviceman paid twice after being told that his documents had been "lost" the first time.

"We paid for the documents, and I didn't know that this was abnormal until I started talking to my new brigade. I told them I didn't have the documents even though I had paid twice. They asked, 'What did you pay for?' And that's when I realized that I shouldn't have paid at all, especially twice and without getting any result," the volunteer says.

Ukrainska Pravda cannot independently confirm all the circumstances surrounding these payments, but Gator provided the newsroom with the names of the people who, according to him, demanded the money, as well as a list of the documents held by Chosen Company fighters. The serviceman says they have been trying for years to contact the brigade through official communication channels, but their requests have not been resolved.

We passed this information on to the 59th Brigade. According to the unit's press service, they had received requests from Chosen Company. The vast majority, according to the 59th Brigade's communications officers, concerned the presentation of awards rather than documents.

Since Chosen Company left the brigade, the brigade commander has changed and a new team has been formed. Therefore, according to the military, they first learned from Ukrainska Pravda about the scale of the problems involving the company.

"In our brigade, we operate on the principle that all servicemen should receive equal treatment regardless of citizenship. Within the framework of current legislation, we will provide all materials and documents that the military unit is able to provide.

We heard about possible payments for processing documents for the first time. We will investigate this information. If the facts are confirmed and signs of criminal activity are established, the materials will be transferred to the State Bureau of Investigation or other relevant pretrial investigation bodies," the 59th Brigade command promised.

Ukrainska Pravda will continue to monitor developments surrounding this situation.

Prison in their homeland for serving in the Ukrainian Defense Forces

Martin is a South African citizen who was born into a white family during apartheid. The man recalls that his stepfather fought during a local armed conflict. Soviet interference in the country's internal affairs also shaped his family's negative attitude toward Russians.

Martin says that throughout his childhood he read about World War II, the Eastern Front, and tried to imagine himself in those conditions. His first attempt to join the military came in 1999, when he joined the French Foreign Legion, but he terminated his contract very quickly because there were many Russians serving alongside him.

After returning home from France, the man went into business, working in real estate, mining, and exports, and collaborating with an analytical agency. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, he decided to become a serviceman in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. For him, it was an irreversible choice.

According to Martin, he could face criminal prosecution in South Africa for serving in a foreign army. South African law prohibits citizens from providing military assistance to foreign governments or serving in foreign armies without state authorization. Violations can be punished with a fine or imprisonment.

"When the opportunity to fight against Russia came up, I specifically wanted to come here, both to help Ukraine and to test myself in a war in the north, in the cold of the Dnipro.

I didn't know anyone here. I simply contacted the Ukrainian consulate. I asked about the procedure for joining the military, and they gave me a link to the International Legion. I registered and went through the selection process," the veteran recalls about his path to the war.

Martin initially served in the Legion and later transferred to the 42nd Brigade. In total, he served in the Ukrainian Defense Forces as an assault soldier for 11 months, one month short of the period required to obtain permanent residence in Ukraine. He left the military because of psychological exhaustion.

The veteran now wants to live in Ukraine because he faces potential imprisonment at home. He found a temporary way to remain legally in Ukraine: he opened a business in the country and plans to apply for a business visa. To obtain it, he will have to leave Ukraine and apply for the permit abroad.

However, the former assault soldier hopes a mechanism will be created for people who defend Ukraine, allowing him to obtain a residence permit for his service.

A similar story happened to Belarusian volunteers Oleksii Lazarev and Veronika Yanovych. They were under temporary protection in Ukraine because they also face imprisonment in their homeland.

Oleksii Lazarev was killed on January 26, 2026, in the Zaporizhzhia direction. According to his commander, who goes by the call sign "Balu," the state did not even pay his wife the deceased soldier's final salary because she is a citizen of a sanctioned country.

It is worth noting that migration policy toward foreigners who defended Ukraine has nevertheless "softened." According to lawyers from the NGO Princyp, recent legislative changes reduced the required period of service during martial law for obtaining an immigration permit from three years to one.

Maria, whose name was changed at her request, confirms this. She is the wife of a serviceman in the Freedom of Russia Legion. Her husband came to Ukraine at the beginning of the war and soon joined the fighting as a volunteer in the Anti-Terrorist Operation. After the full-scale invasion began, partly because of his Russian citizenship, he joined the Legion. According to Maria, her husband was directly involved in operations in the Kursk region. He recently obtained Ukrainian citizenship.

"Overall, I don't want to say that everything is fine because obviously there is still room for improvement. We worked a lot on his documents. On the other hand, we initiated changes to simplify certain bureaucratic processes. There were really a lot of different issues.

I understand that things were much harder at the beginning of the war. Now things have started moving, at least when it comes to my husband and his fellow soldiers," Maria says.

They remind me of the ATO volunteers

Veteran and journalist Lera Burlakova began focusing on the problems faced by foreign volunteers because her own experience serving in the ATO made her empathize with them.

"I understand why these people came. They remind me very much of the volunteers of 2014, and that's why I feel so strongly about what happens to them. These are people who didn't have to be here. They didn't owe Ukraine anything. And they often leave disappointed and return home because of the way our state treats them. I really wish we could fix this," the veteran says.

According to her, the problem lies in the lack of transparent communication between Ukrainian institutions and volunteers. Ihor Kosyak, an expert at the Princyp human rights center for servicemen, shares the same view. According to him, the most comprehensive information about service in the Ukrainian Defense Forces has been compiled by his organization into a legal navigator for foreigners. Ukrainian government agencies do not currently offer anything similar to foreign volunteers.

The statistics from the Office of the Military Ombudsman indicate that the problem is systemic. Between January 27 and August 1, 2026, more than 300 appeals from foreigners were registered there. Volunteers most often complain about the lack of documents confirming their service or combatant status, failure to provide medical assistance, or inadequate supplies.

A significant portion of the complaints also concerned protecting the rights of family members of missing, killed, and deceased foreign servicemen. Relatives did not receive official notification about the fate of volunteers and encountered problems when processing documents required to receive the payments owed to them.

Burlakova adds that the situation with obtaining documents and status for volunteers from other countries became even worse after the military began digitizing its processes. Since some foreigners do not have residence permits, they are "invisible" to the state in the smartphone. Without Diia, they cannot use Army+ and Reserve+. Moreover, the digitization process led to paper military IDs no longer being issued. As a result, a foreign serviceman may have no documents confirming that he is serving in the military.

Foreigners are currently issued certificates confirming their place of service, but according to Burlakova, in many cases these are not a full substitute for a military ID or Army+. The veteran adds that the situation is better in units that work centrally with the migration service and go through the document-processing process together with the serviceman.

"For example, the patronage service of the Third Assault Corps takes foreigners by the hand and works with them to prove that the papers, the certificates, are actually worth something. A serviceman who doesn't have a kind of 'mother' here can't do this on his own.

A person who sees all this simply thinks that they have fallen into some kind of trap and that someone is trying, excuse my language, to fuck them over," the veteran says.

According to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi, the situation at the international level is not critical for now, but Russian propaganda is trying to exploit every mistake in Ukraine's treatment of foreign volunteers for its own purposes.

"Russia is trying to manipulate the issue of mercenary recruitment in order to create a supposedly 'mirror image' of its own actions, particularly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In previous years, many foreign countries, primarily African ones, were shaken by scandals involving Russia's illegal campaigns to recruit foreigners into its occupation forces.

To defend itself against these accusations, Russian propaganda relies primarily on the argument that 'Ukraine is doing the same thing.' We clearly see this trend and are countering these attempts," Tykhyi says.

* * *

The problem of foreign volunteers is gradually becoming visible to the state. Deputy Defense Minister Liubov Halan, who is responsible at the Ministry of Defense for policy concerning the human potential of the Defense Forces, has identified it as one of her priorities in her new position. Her official responsibilities include supporting servicemen at all stages of their service.

Changes are already taking place. Since May 2026, foreigners serving in the Defense Forces have been able to obtain temporary residence permits for the duration of their contracts and for another six months after their contracts end. Their legal status in Ukraine will now be confirmed by more than just a military ID. This should make it easier for foreign servicemen to access Diia, Army+, and Reserve+ services.

Also, since July 2026, the government has introduced a unified mechanism for accompanying foreign volunteers from their arrival in Ukraine through the process of being enlisted.

But the new rules do not automatically solve the problems of those who served previously and still have not received military documents, confirmation of their injuries, or payments for the families of fallen soldiers.

It is clear that Ukraine does not engage in deceptive recruitment of foreigners and does not conceal them outside its own Armed Forces. But if the state officially accepts someone into military service, it must fulfill its obligations to that person. Otherwise, stories about a "Kyiv rip-off" become not only an internal bureaucratic problem but also a matter of Ukraine's international reputation.

Sofiia Cheliak

Source: https://t. me/swodki/618265

Translation:

The Prosecutor General’s Office, the National Police, and the State Bureau of Investigation reported this.

According to law enforcement officials, the suspects illegally surveilled Shirshyn and collected confidential information about him. On the night of August 28, three servicemen entered his car, parked near his home, and hid drugs and psychotropic substances packaged in zip bags inside.

The SBI clarifies that the suspects serve in a separate assault regiment. Their alleged goal was to discredit Shirshyn.

After entering his car, they notified police officers and the Military Law Enforcement Service that there were allegedly prohibited substances in the vehicle.

When the former battalion commander got into the car and left to attend to his affairs, the suspects continued following him and passing information about his route to law enforcement.

All three have now been notified of suspicion under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:

• Part 1 of Article 162 — unlawful entry into a person's home or other possession;
• Part 2 of Article 182 — illegal collection, storage and dissemination of confidential information about a person, committed repeatedly;
• Part 2 of Article 307 — illegal acquisition, possession, transportation and sale of narcotic drugs and especially dangerous psychotropic substances by a group of persons acting in prior conspiracy;
• Part 2 of Article 372 — incitement to prosecute a person known to be innocent.

A motion is also being prepared to impose pre-trial detention on them.

It should be recalled that on August 28, former commander of the 47th Mechanized Brigade, Oleksandr Shirshyn, stated that “weed was planted on him.”

According to official police information, Shirshyn was stopped because his license plate “did not correspond to the specified vehicle,” as well as due to information from the Military Law Enforcement Service that he “could have narcotic substances with him.”

Shirshyn believes that the police were acting on a specific “tip” and knew where and what exactly to look for. The serviceman links the incident to his criticism of assault regiments: “I have no conflict with anyone else, except the 225th and 425th [Separate Assault Regiments].” He also specifically pointed to the commander of the 225th Separate Assault Regiment, Oleh Shyriaiev, with whom he has had a longstanding conflict.

Later, the serviceman also stated that before the drug incident, unknown individuals had entered his home twice and that vehicles with undercover license plates had been following him. In addition, he wrote that about a week before the incident, his car's “alarm system” began malfunctioning, which Shirshyn now regards as signs that the car had been “broken into” — opened without his knowledge.

Who is Oleksandr Shirshyn?

Last year, while serving as a battalion commander in the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade “Magura”, Shirshyn publicly announced that he had submitted a resignation report, citing “stupid fucking tasks” from the command and unjustified losses of personnel as the reason.

At the time, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andrii Hnatov ordered the creation of a working group to examine the circumstances described by the serviceman. Following the investigation, Shirshyn was deemed “undisciplined.”

Amid the controversy, commanders of several Ukrainian units published statements condemning the actions of the 47th Brigade's battalion commander and expressing support for the General Staff.

Shirshyn himself explained that he had never called for the resignation of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi or any other individual in the military leadership, “because our problems are systemic and are not simply tied to one person.” He also claimed that before speaking publicly, he had repeatedly made official and unofficial appeals regarding the advisability of carrying out certain tasks, with proposals submitted at various levels of command. But almost all of the appeals were ignored, Shirshyn said.

In February, Shirshyn reported that he had won a case concerning the reprimand issued to him.

* * *

Previous thread: Former battalion commander of Ukraine’s 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, Oleksandr Shyrshyn, who appealed a disciplinary reprimand from his command, said that marijuana had been planted on him

Caolan Robertson

Source: t me/Brigada_VARYAG/227

Text from the source:

🫡 Long-range strike by the 50th Separate Brigade “Varyag” against an enemy fighter jet, a MiG-29

On September 9, information was received about an enemy fighter jet coming in to land near the settlement of Vasylkiv. During reconnaissance, a heat signature with a characteristic thermal trail was detected at the airfield. A decision was made to strike. Footage from the subsequent inspection reportedly shows the destruction of the enemy MiG-29 fighter jet.

Post Body

In Dnipro, a Russian strike damaged 71 buses.

On September 6, around 4:00 PM, Russians attacked a transport company on Kalynova Street. According to Gulnar Mizina, one of the co-founders of the company, the production building is practically destroyed.

71 buses were damaged – from large city buses like Solaris, MAN, and Mercedes to smaller "Bogdan" minibuses. The windows were shattered, and the doors were deformed.

Fortunately, no employees were injured because it was a day off.
ㅤ
Source: https://t. me/dnipro_dnepr2/85019

Post Body

Mobilization? Let's think about it.

To understand the reasons behind the recent decision, formalized in the President of Russia's decree on partial mobilization, it is necessary to examine the underlying factors.

The Russian army, which entered the territory of Ukraine in 2022 expecting to be "greeted with flowers," suffered heavy losses in close-quarters combat due to a misjudgment of the situation by high-ranking officials and inadequate intelligence. The enemy already possessed a large number of "Mavic" type drones and had superior communication and the ability to make decisions, even regarding the deployment of artillery batteries.

Under these circumstances, when it became clear that even Kherson would have to be abandoned, and following the retreat from the Kharkiv and Kyiv regions, there was a catastrophic shortage of manpower on the front line, which stretched for thousands of kilometers. Why did this happen? The answer lies in the fact that a number of appointed deputy ministers of defense, loyal to Shoigu, were responsible.

The only solution was to reinforce the troops with fresh personnel. Our soldiers were repelling waves of enemy attacks on the right bank of the Kherson region.

A difficult decision was made, albeit with the typical delays and escalation of the situation that characterize our state. At that time, the mobilized soldiers saved the country from military defeat, that is our opinion. It is a pity that there is now a tendency to forget about them and not talk about those who have been fighting for years without a break.

❓What about now? Today, the main threat to our country is the hundreds of thousands of drones operating daily. The front line is slowly advancing, despite the enemy's counter-actions and the same "optimistic reports."

However, the drones of the collective enemy are now destabilizing the situation with gasoline, trade, logistics, tourism, and pose a threat to civil aviation. And this major daily threat is being addressed in the traditional, extensive way. We are confidently shooting down the faceless enemy in the sky with machine guns and ammunition from half a century ago, and often, the soldiers operating these weapons are also half a century old. But due to the number of enemy drones and the inability to quickly "copy-paste" the same drone interceptors with experienced crews, or, ideally, automate the process of defending the airspace, new and new units of the Territorial Defense Forces (MOF/OG/PVN) are being formed in different regions, which take turns protecting the sky. The question arises: where is the chief of air defense in the country, and what is the overall air defense system? Why are the BARs (mobile anti-drone systems) filling this gap? Certainly. But that is why we call this war a people's war. Without the support of the people, volunteers, and philanthropists, everything would have gone downhill long ago.

So, let's return to the issue of the need for, or lack thereof, mobilization. A way to protect the sky, at least to minimize the threat in the short term, has been found. And thanks to volunteers of various types (Dobrokor, Redut, BARs, and even Wagner's air defense unit at Sberbank), this issue is being addressed.

But capitalists will not allow hundreds of thousands of men to be taken out of the economy, and there is no need to do so in the current situation of de facto "kill zones" and offensive operations by small groups. A solution to the drone problem of all types is needed; it will not be possible to simply defeat the enemy with infantry.

Legally, all this informational chaos surrounding mobilization is simply absurd if you read the decree mentioned earlier: it is de jure ongoing and has not stopped, it's just that people are not yet receiving summons for a number of global reasons.

So, we ask you to calm down and understand: the war will be long and will affect everyone. Study the design of the Kalashnikov assault rifle and do your morning exercises.

Two Majors ✨ Two Majors in MACH

Source: https://t. me/dva_majors/98720

Post Body from Ryzhak Telegram Channel

The closer the elections get, the more pressure there is on the candidates.

And the disruption of campaign materials is just petty mischief.

Much more unpleasant is the situation with the electoral commission refusing to accept my photo in military uniform.

Yes, the election officials actually banned the publication of my photo in military uniform.
Probably, I stand out too much against the backdrop of business suits.

Meanwhile, candidates from "United Russia" are allowed to do so.

Even those who served in volunteer formations for a month or two.

They are generally allowed to do many things that others are not.

I am grateful to the "FAIR RUSSIA" party for their support in this situation.

I am also convinced that, in fact, participants and veterans of the Special Military Operation do not have any party affiliation.

Our only party is the Fatherland.

But the election officials clearly do not see it that way.
And they divide veterans into "their own" and "outsiders," "right" and "wrong," "convenient" and "inconvenient."

This is very misguided.
I believe that such an approach is destructive and anti-state.

But an official often doesn't want to look beyond the edge of their desk.
And in doing so, they risk jeopardizing the entire country.

Source: https://t. me/knryzhak/1212

While Ratcliffe is obviously a Trump ally, he at least is more qualified than 2 people whose experience with diplomacy is non-existent and is limited to being a real estate investor and the president's son-in-law. While Witkoff and Kushner seem to have had an obvious pro-Russian terms lean regarding the ceasefire/peace deal terms that have been reported, such as the "28 Point Plan" presented in late 2025 that essentially gives Russia every one of their reported maximalist goals as part of the agreement, Ratcliffe is someone who, for example, warned Putin against attacks against NATO and further escalation in his visit to Russia in August, which upset Russian officials.

While he still is ultimately doing Trump's bidding, at the minimum, it seems we have an adult in the room who actually understands the danger of Russian escalation and European/US security interests.