Captured Ukrainian serviceman says foreigners take part in attack on Russian Kursk Region

Ruslan Poltoratsky, a serviceman of Ukraine’s 80th Airborne Assault Brigade detained by Russian border guards, has said that foreign nationals are taking part in the cross-border attack on the Kursk Region.

"When we crossed the border with Russia, at first I thought there was some line noise. But then I distinguished what they were saying - they were speaking English, Polish, maybe even French. I did not understand anything, I said into the walkie-talkie - 'repeat, repeat,' hearing some gibberish," the captured serviceman said during the interrogation, the video footage of which was released by the FSB.

"When they had already taken positions [in the Kursk Region], they also went on the air with their superiors, with ours as well, and I also heard them saying something in English and in some other language. Something about houses, chaos," he said. At the same time, he heard the sound of shooting coming from the two-way radio.

Earlier, Major General Apty Alaudinov, deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Military-Political Department and commander of the Akhmat special forces commando unit, said there were a lot of French and Polish mercenaries in the Kursk area.

According to Defense Ministry updates, Kiev has lost up to 1,350 military personnel, 29 tanks and 23 armored personnel carriers since it launched the cross-border attack.

The gang members in Ecuador taking over a TV station while launching other attacks is a case of "violent lobbying," a term coined by Benjamin Lessing

🔶️ It's an extreme example of gangsters in LatAm using this insurgent-like tactic but it's not the first.

⬛️ Here are other cases:

🔶️ Colombian capo Pablo Escobar unleashed massive violence against the government and civilians to get his way and exert pressure. His most infamous act was using a hitman to down Avianca Flight 203 in 1989. It killed all 107 occupants. As this included Americans, US courts acted.

🔶️ In 2006, Brazil's PCC gang - or First Commando of the Capital - rose up in prisons in São Paolo and carried out almost 300 attacks, burning banks,busses, and police stations and killing dozens of officers. The attack was likely in response to the prison transfer of its leaders.

🔶️ In 2015 in Jalisco, Mexico, gunmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel burned cars and trucks in what are called narco bloqueos and attacked police, soldiers. It was in response to an attempt to arrest boss El Mencho. They shot down an army helicopter, probably with a 50 cal.

🔶️ In 2019, gunmen for the Sinaloa Cartel rose up in Culiacán, Mexico, following the arrest of Ovidio, son of El Chapo. They took hostages, fought with soldiers and blockaded streets. The Mexican government finally let Ovidio go - although the Mexican army re-arrested him in 2023.

🔶️ It is "violent lobbying" because the gangsters are using bloodshed and terror to exert pressure. They want the government to back off or release a suspect or stop raiding their dope.

🔶️ It makes the government pay a cost to go after them - and governments will often back down.