Ukraine Today
Putin fights in Syria using mercenaries, who previously fought against Ukrainian army in Donbas
Kremlin spent from 5.1 billion to 10.3 billion rubles to send Russian mercenaries from "Wagner group" private military company to fight in Syria. This number is the result of investigation, conducted by Russian information agency RBC.
According to the agency' sources Putin already unofficially have sent to Syria up to 2,5 thousand soldiers of PMC. The salary of each mercenary is 300 thousand rubles, while the soldier of regular Russian army in Syria receive 80 thousand rubles.
According to co-owner of Moran Security Group Boris Chikin, equipment for each soldier costs up to thousand, as well as alimony and logistics per month for one person. Food costs about 800 rubles per day. So the price of keeping 2500 mercenaries from just one PMC in Syria is worth at least 170 million rubles.
According to various sources and publications "Wagner" lost from 27 to about a hundred soldiers in Syria. Information about compensation for the families of the fallen is different: a source from the PMC says about 5 million rubles, the Russian Ministry of Defence officer says about 1 million rubles for the death of up to 500 thousand rubles for the injured.
The sources informed that funds for the mercenaries come both from the state and from some "private investors". But RBC couldn't get any clues about those "investors", because interlocutors refused to talk about them even off the record.
Ukrainian sources – among them media and volunteers – earlier informed about the involvement of the "Wagner group" in Putin's hybrid invasion to Ukraine. The mercenaries were noted both fighting with Ukrainian army and killing leaders of the separatist forces, who became inconvenient for the Kremlin, like Bednov or Mozgovoy.
