Bosnian Serb mercenary Savicic linked to Russian GRU
In August 2023, a notorious Bosnian Serb mercenary appeared on a Russian propaganda program to recruit fighters for the all-out war against Ukraine that the Kremlin had launched 18 months earlier, CE Report quotes Kosova Press.
"I want to invite both the Russians and the Serbs," Davor Savicic, then associated with the now-defunct mercenary group Wagner, which fought in Syria and Ukraine, said in that interview REL.
"The unit is operating and will continue to operate," he said.
Previously, Savic was cautious with journalists about his activities in Russia, telling them only that he was a simple construction worker living outside Moscow.
In the interview for the pro-Kremlin program Solovyov Live, he claimed that his volunteer unit was “signing a contract with the [Russian] Ministry of Defense.”
But a database leaked from the Russian Defense Ministry's hospital and provided to Radio Free Europe shows that Savicic's ties to the Russian military go much deeper than those of a simple builder or volunteer recruiter: he is listed as a colonel in the military intelligence agency - the GRU.
Savic, who was sanctioned by the United Kingdom in November for "destabilizing Ukraine," is among hundreds of foreign fighters listed on the database in question.
It has over 165.000 individual records, which provide information on the casualties Moscow has suffered since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
However, there is no final estimate for all foreign nationals who have served in the Russian armed forces.
According to Western estimates, the number of Russian casualties - whether killed or wounded - is around 700.000.
But the leaked data also provides a wealth of evidence about Russia's foreign mercenaries - some of whom signed up for pay, while others were pressured or fell prey to scams.
An analysis of hospitalization data by REL found that foreign soldiers from dozens of countries - including Serbia, Nepal, India, China, Sri Lanka, Cuba and Cameroon - were treated in Russian military hospitals between February 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine, and mid-June 2024.
