Two senior European security officials say that the paramilitary fighters are inside the rebel territories of Ukraine to lay the groundwork for war.
Russian mercenaries with experience fighting in Syria and Libya have covertly trickled into two rebel territories in eastern Ukraine, helping to lay the groundwork for war, according to two senior European security officials. The mercenaries, which so far number about 300, are with the Russian paramilitary group Wagner and arrived in the separatist enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk wearing civilian clothes, according to the European officials. Western intelligence services have tracked them leaving Libya and Syria and arriving in Russian-controlled Crimea, from where they have filtered into the rebel territories, one of the officials said. Their numbers are tiny compared to the estimated 190,000 troops that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has placed around Ukraine’s border as he threatens to wage what many fear could be the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II. But the presence of Wagner fighters is another ominous sign of the approach of war, and raises the possibility that Mr. Putin may follow a playbook used in 2014, when the Kremlin deployed Russian mercenaries, mostly veterans of the Russian military, to augment the forces of rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine. The precise purpose of the mercenaries is a subject of debate. One of the officials said the mercenaries had been placed in the rebel territories to engage in sabotage and stage false flag operations intended to make it seem as if Ukrainian forces were attacking civilian targets. But the second senior official, who is with Ukraine’s military, said the mercenaries began arriving two months ago and were primarily brought in to fill out the ranks of the separatist forces, to make it seem like local fighters were leading the charge. The Ukrainian official, interviewed on Wednesday, said it was Russian intelligence services that were responsible for sabotage. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss sensitive intelligence findings. Ukraine is at a moment of intensifying anxiety.
