🇷🇺🇺🇦 02/06/2022 The war in Ukraine Briefing by Russian Defence Ministry

⚡️Briefing by Russian Defence Ministry

▫️The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation in Ukraine.

💥 High-precision air-based missiles have hit 21 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration, including command posts of the Ukrainian Nazi formations Kraken and Azov near Kharkov.

✈️💥Operational-tactical, army and unmanned aviation have hit 15 areas of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment concentration. Ammunition and fuel depots of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Dolina and Slavyansk, Donetsk People's Republic have been destroyed.

▫️The attacks have resulted in the elimination of up to 240 nationalists and up to 39 weapons and military equipment, including 1 Osa-AKM anti-aircraft missile system, 10 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, 3 BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers, 7 artillery mounts and mortars, and 17 special vehicles.

💥Fighter aviation have shot down 1 Su-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian air force near Lubomirovka, Nikolaev Region.

💥Russian air defence means have hit 7 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Odessa, Kamyshevakha, Popasnaya, Zolotoe, Kudryashovka in Lugansk People's Republic, Yarovaya in Kharkov Region, as well as Verkhnetoretskoe in Donetsk People's Republic overnight.

💥Missile troops and artillery have hit 131 command posts, 146 artillery and mortar batteries at firing positions, as well as 579 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration.

📊In total, 186 Ukrainian aircraft and 129 helicopters, 1,084 unmanned aerial vehicles, 327 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,373 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 460 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,752 field artillery and mortars, as well as 3,350 units of special military vehicles were destroyed during the operation.

❗️We note that the inflow of foreign mercenaries to Ukraine to take part in combat operations against the Russian Armed Forces has virtually dried up since the beginning of May.

▫️According to the data at our disposal, the total number of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine has now been almost halved from 6,600 to 3,500. At the same time, the number of mercenaries in combat units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and National Guard in Donbass has decreased by orders of magnitude.

▫️Hundreds of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine were eliminated by Russian long-range precision weapons shortly after their arrival while they were still undergoing pre-training and coordination of tactical units.

▫️But most of the mercenaries are destroyed in the war zone due to their low level of training and lack of real combat experience.

❗️Separately, I would like to point out that the commanders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and National Guard units, which included mercenaries, are not sparing foreigners in their efforts to reduce losses of their servicemen. Captured mercenaries tell interrogators that they are the first to be sacrificed. Due to the Kiev regime's silencing of the losses and the absence of remains, relatives of the mercenaries in their countries of residence simply do not know about their deaths.

▫️Faced with a real combat situation and heavy losses among servicemen of the AFU, the National Guard and foreigners, a significant number of mercenaries prefer to leave Ukrainian territory as soon as possible, but the Kiev regime prevents them from going abroad in every possible way.

▫️Let me remind you that under international humanitarian law, mercenaries are not combatants and the best that awaits them is criminal liability.

▫️The Kiev regime's urgent attempts to guarantee the mercenaries legal protection by including them in the military units of the AFU or the National Guard, or by issuing them with fresh Ukrainian passports, will not save any of them.