On Jan. 29, Russian state-run news agency TASS published a report titled “Akhmat Fighter: Ukrainian Troops with U.S. Flags Killed in Chasiv Yar Were Mercenaries.” The article states:
“'U.S. flags were found on the bodies of Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) soldiers killed in the southern part of Chasiv Yar. These fighters may have been foreign mercenaries,' claimed Zelimkhan Batukaev, commander of the 2nd Motor Rifle Battalion (Territorial Defense) of the 4th Brigade in the 3rd Combined Arms Army of Russia’s Southern Military District, which is part of the 'Akhmat' special forces, in a comment to TASS.
'As we moved into the camp, we didn’t find a single dead enemy with a Ukrainian flag — only American ones. I am 99% sure they weren’t Ukrainians,' he said.
According to Batukaev, a similar situation was observed in Bakhmut. 'I saw the same picture when we entered Bakhmut. You probably remember, don’t you? When we moved in, 90% of them were mercenaries. Entering this camp, I saw exactly the same thing,' the fighter noted.
He also added that three Ukrainian servicemen had surrendered in the southeast of the city. 'They don’t fully understand what they’re fighting for,' Batukaev said.”
Batukaev’s story appears implausible. All AFU soldiers are required to carry an identification tag with their name, personal number, and blood type.
It is highly unlikely that all of the fallen soldiers he describes somehow did not have their tags — which are crucial in case of severe injury in order to determine their blood type for transfusions. Yet while the soldiers supposedly all lacked identification tags, Batukaev would have us believe they were all sporting American flags. It is also unclear why he assumes soldiers would carry their national flag at all times. Yet he concludes that there were no Ukrainians among them precisely because they were not found with Ukrainian flags.
Notably, according to Batukaev’s own account, there were no Ukrainians among the dead, but the prisoners — who “don’t fully understand what they are fighting for” — were Ukrainians. If they were not, Batukaev presumably would have specified which countries these “mercenaries” came from.
Two days earlier, Akhmat commander Apti Alaudinov claimed that “Russian assault troops seized a NATO generals' bunker in Chasiv Yar,” which, according to him, had been destroyed by an Iskander missile strike in March 2024 but was somehow rebuilt despite being made up of “massive underground concrete bunkers.”
Alaudinov also alleged that Polish General Adam Marczak was killed in that March strike. However, this claim has long since been debunked. Brigadier General Marczak served as chief of staff for Operation Althea, the EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The mission’s headquarters was in Mons, Belgium, where Marczak reportedly died suddenly of natural causes. The investigative outlet Provereno tracked the flight that transported his body from Mons to Poland and pointed out that neither Russian nor Ukrainian sources reported any missile strikes on Chasiv Yar on the day of his death.