ASTANA. Oct 4 (Interfax) - At least 18,000 mercenaries from 85 states, mostly citizens of France, Poland and Georgia, are fighting for Ukraine, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov said.
"The size of the so-called International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine speaks for the scale of the West-established system supplying militants to the front. It numbers 18,000 people from 85 states, including post-Soviet countries," Bortnikov said at the 55th meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services on Friday.
"Polish, French and Georgian militants are especially widely represented in Ukraine," he said.
"We have been recording an increase in the number of mercenaries from Latin America in the Ukrainian Armed Forces lately," Bortnikov said.
In most cases, such persons are recruited abroad from Ukrainian missions, Bortnikov said.
"The foreign recruits receive special training at NATO training centers and camps in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania," he said.