Photo: Getty
After the Russian state-run media outlet Pravda identified three Tennessee National Guard members as “mercenaries” who were killed while fighting in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. National Guard refuted the report as “patently false” on Thursday.
“The three soldiers identified in the article are either current or former members of the Tennessee National Guard,” the Office of the Tennessee Adjutant General said,according to the National Guard. “They are accounted for, safe and not, as the article headline erroneously states, U.S. mercenaries killed in Donetsk People’s Republic.”
Members of the Tennessee National Guard’s 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment were deployed to Ukraine in 2018, the National Guard said, adding that all of them “returned safely to their home state in 2019 after a successful mission.”
Local residents are seen outside a damaged building in Volnovakha of Donetsk, Ukraine, on March 15.Victor/Xinhua via Getty Images
The National Guard said it believes the three Americans named in the Pravda report were “targeted” because they were subjects of articles that appeared on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, which provides real-time video, photography, print content and interview opportunities with service members, commanders and experts deployed overseas,according to the service’s website.
More than 200 U.S. soldiers were deployed during the 2018 mission to assist Ukrainian forces in developing a combat training center, the National Guard said.
Leon Klein/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The fighting in Ukraine continues some three weeks after Russian forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades.
More than 3 million people have fled Ukraine since the fighting began, according to the United Nations.
With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. Ukraine PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyycalled for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
“Nobody is going to break us, we’re strong, we’re Ukrainians,“he told the European Unionin a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, “Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness.”
source: people.com
