Russia is hiring "murderers from Syria" to fight in Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the Kremlin said that volunteers will be allowed to come from the Middle East to fight there.
"It’s a war with a very stubborn enemy … who has decided to hire mercenaries against our citizens. Murderers from Syria, a country where everything has been destroyed … like they are doing here to us," the Ukrainian president said in a video statement posted to Telegram, reports The Times of Israel.
His claims come after reports that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a Friday Security Council meeting, that a "huge number of applications from all sorts of volunteers from different countries would like to come to the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics in order to participate in what they consider to be a liberation movement," reports Newsweek Saturday.
He also told Putin that most of the more than 16,000 requests are coming from the Middle East, and he said Moscow should approve them "as these requests are not for money but at the true desire of these people," according to a readout from the Kremlin.
The document also cited the volunteers' experience fighting ISIS alongside Russia with Syria and Iran.
Putin reportedly appeared to be open to the plan, saying that "mercenaries from all over the world are being sent to Ukraine" and that Western sponsors of the regime there are openly recruiting and "neglecting all norms of international law," the Kremlin document states.
A senior Pentagon official said the United States is watching the developments, but hasn't seen any indications that the recruiting efforts are succeeding or that foreign fighters have arrived from Syria, reports Newsweek.
"We said we believed they were moving in this direction," the official added, but "now they're publicly acknowledging it and putting a number on it."
The Russian Defense Ministry's official Zvezda TV outlet on Thursday aired footage which has popped up on Twitter, that's said to show armed Syrians, wearing fatigues and waving Russian flags while holding "Z" signs, a sign being used to show support of the Russians' push against Ukraine.
However, a Syrian politician, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Newsweek there's no information about any Syrian Arab Army troops or veterans signing up to fight in Ukraine.
"We in Syria have enough on our plate," the source said, pointing out that his country is "still at war with international terrorism in Idlib and northern Syria as well as in Israel…we don't think Russia is in danger or in need of more manpower."
The reports on Syrian fighters come after U.S. officials said a week ago that Russia is recruiting current military and veterans from Syria, offering them salaries of between $200 and $300 in U.S. dollars to fight.
Officials would not elaborate on how many fighters were recruited, according to The Wall Street Journal report.
Meanwhile, The Times in London reported Friday that fighters in the Central African Republic released a video saying they'll join their "Russian brothers" to bring "peace and order" to Ukraine.
Russian state media has been broadcasting similar videos from other African countries, reports The Times of London. Last month, the publication reported that Putin brought in hundreds of mercenaries from the Wagner Group private militia, a contractor that has been accused of involvement in other African countries, with orders to kill Zelenskyy.