The US State Department confirmed to AFP Saturday, the killing of two Americans in Donbass, eastern Ukraine, where the war is taking place between Kyiv forces and Moscow’s forces, without specifying whether they are actually fighters.
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Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, many foreign volunteers, mostly Europeans, have traveled to this country to help the Kyiv forces. It is difficult to estimate exactly how many.
A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry announced, “We can confirm the death of two American citizens in the Ukrainian Donbass region,” on the border with Russia, without specifying the date and circumstances of their death, or the reasons for their presence in the country.
He added, “We are in contact with the families and provide them with all possible consular assistance,” explaining that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will not provide further details for the time being, “out of respect for the relatives.”
The United States has already confirmed the deaths of two of its citizens in the fighting in Ukraine.
Two former US soldiers were also captured in early June in eastern Ukraine. When the Kremlin spokesman was asked about the possibility of imposing the death penalty on them, he replied that “it (it will depend) on the investigation.”
Russia, which regularly denounces the presence of these fighters on Ukrainian soil, said in mid-June that it had killed nearly 2,000 “foreign mercenaries” since the conflict began.
The industrial and working-class Donbass basin has been partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Russian forces have made advances there in recent weeks.
