President Putin Gives Green Light 16K Fighters From Middle East Join Fighting Ukraine

President Russia Vladimir Putin bersama Menteri Pertahanan Sergei Shoigu. (Wikimedia Commons/Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation)

JAKARTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the green light on Friday to bring thousands of fighters from the Middle East to join the fight against Ukraine.

At a meeting of the Russian Security Council, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to come to fight with Russian-backed forces in the breakaway Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

"If you see that there are people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to the aid of the people living in the Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone", said President Putin, reports Reuters March 11.

On the same occasion, Minister Shoigu also proposed that the Western-made Javelin and Stinger missiles captured by Russian troops in Ukraine should be handed over to the Donbass troops.

"Regarding the delivery of weapons, especially Western-made weapons that fell into the hands of the Russian army, of course I support the possibility of giving them to the military units of the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics", President Putin continued.

"Please do this", he insisted to Minister Shoigu.

Earlier, Minister Shoigu said the Russian military was planning to strengthen its Western borders, following what he said was an increase in Western military units on Russia's borders.

To note, Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 soon after President Putin recognized the two breakaway territories as independent states, in a move condemned internationally as illegal.

Russia says the 'special military operation' in Ukraine is a forced response to what it calls the genocide by Ukraine against Russian-speaking speakers in the country's east, a pretext that Kyiv and the West reject as baseless war propaganda.