ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka should make greater efforts to bring back citizens in mercenary companies who injured in a war between Russia and Ukraine opposition legislator Dayasiri Jayasekera said.
At the moment there is no Sri Lanka ambassador in Russia.
“If we can send a special envoy from the President to Russia, discuss with the Defence Secretary at least and first bring back the injured in the hospitals,” Jayasekera who was one of the first legislators to bring attention to recruitment of Sri Lankans for Russia’s war.
“Then we can secondly bring back the people in the camps. There is a diplomatic intervention that is needed. We need some plan to bring back the 600 or so people who are there.”
One Sri Lanka ex-soldier estimated that 200 to 300 Sri Lankans may be treated in Russian hospitals at the moment and about 200 may have died.
Several mercenary companies including Wagner, at one time headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who who was killed in a plane crash shortly after a mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin are recruiting convicts and foreigners to fight the war against Ukraine.
Several other shadowy mercenary companies including Redut, believed to be under Russian intelligence agency GRU are recruiting mercenaries, according to western media reports.
The mercenary firm are financed by the Russian defence ministry and according to Western reports, and set up to provide veneer of distance and deniability.
When Prigozhin was alive, Wagner was said be recruiting mercenaries including convicts on 6-month contracts, after which they were set free.
But Sri Lankans who have now come back to the country say they have been recruited on 12-month contracts.
A BBC report said half of prisoners recruited when Prigozhin lived at least 4 months before dying in combat.
However half of those recruited by the Russian Defence Ministry died within three months.
Prigozhin went public had he had lost 22,000 fighter in taking back Bakmut from Ukraine.
An escaped soldier who was interviewed on Sri Lanka’s Derana television said there was no medivac process to recover injured foreign mercenaries and they had to crawl back to Russian position on their own.
If they got back, they were taken to hospital, given a one-month break and send back to the front.
One soldier described the operations as ‘suicide missions’ done under drone fire with little outside support.
The escaped fighter was serving in the Donetsk region which has Russian speakers, which declared independence and was is operating as a separate republic loosely annexed to Russia.
Several agencies were recruiting people from Sri Lanka charging between 350,000 to 1.6 million according to what returnees say.
Sri Lanka has already arrested several senior military officers who had recruited Sri Lankan ex-soldiers.
State Minister for Defence Pramith Tennakoon said Jayasekera and Gamini Valeboda, another legislator who had helped bring national attention to the plight of the Sri Lankan took part in a National Security Council meeting at the invitation of President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
“Instructions were given immediately to the forces to take action,” Tennakoon said. “As a result several arrests were made.”
Sri Lankan retired soldiers are made various false promises including Russian citizenship, a piece of land in St Petersberg as well as high salaries and sign up bonuses of 2.0 million rupees, he said.
Others said they were promised salaries of 700,000 rupees Sri Lanka a month or more but the promised amount has not been given. (Colombo/May14/2024)