Russian Official: Foreign Mercenaries Fought in August War

Head of the investigative unit of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office, Alexandr Bastrikin, said foreign mercenaries were fighting on the Georgian side during the August war.

“An investigative group, set up to probe into Georgia’s aggression, has confirmed, that a group of American, Czech, Turkish, Ukrainian and Chechen mercenaries was operating,” Interfax news agency reported on November 24, quoting Bastrikin while speaking at a conference on international humanitarian law in St. Petersburg.

Later he told reporters that some nationals from the Baltic States were also fighting for Georgia.

“It was a fairly small number of people. They mainly fulfilled support roles,” Bastrikin said. “There were also two snipers … one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman.”

Alexandre Lomaia, the Secretary of the Georgian National Security Council, told Reuters that the Russian allegation was “absurd” and “fantasy.”

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