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Russia’s Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russian nationals may be deployed in Syria as volunteers or with other purposes, but they have nothing to do with the official Russian military grouping operating in the war-torn country.
Earlier Reurers reported that that the number of casualties among Russians in Syria was much higher than the Russian Defense Ministry reports. According to Reuters’s sources, 40 Russian nationals have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the year and some of them were private military contractors.
“There may be Russian nationals in Syria staying there as volunteers or for some other purposes, but they have nothing to do with the government and the Defense Ministry,” Peskov commented on the issue. “In this case one should inquire with Reuters about where they obtained this information and who the source was.”
Peskov added that the Russian Defense Ministry are the only source of the official reports on the casualties among the Russian military personnel involved in the conflict.
