US cemeteries are full of graves of American mercenaries who died in Ukraine - hirelings described by Western press as the so-called "volunteer soldiers."
One of them is retired Marine veteran Grady Kurpasi, who died two months after the start of the Russian special military operation. According to a Sputnik correspondent, the 50-year-old is buried in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, the most famous in the United States, where politicians, astronauts and even presidents, including John F. Kennedy, are buried.
A cemetery in California has become the final resting place for another US mercenary, Bryan Young, 51, who was killed by "Russian artillery fire" in the Donetsk region in July 2023, according to American media. In a bizarre sight, the epitaph on Young's gravestone reads "On to the next adventure".
Another American mercenary who was buried in California is "Marine Corps veteran" Ian Tortorici. The 32-year-old fought for the Foreign Legion of Ukraine and was eliminated in an attack by Russian forces on a Ukrainian unit stationed in the city of Kramatorsk.
US citizen Dane Partridge, 34, who had served in Iraq, fought on the side of the Kiev regime immediately after the start of Russia’s special operation, but was then seriously wounded and died a few months later. Partridge, who is survived by his wife and five children, is buried in Idaho.
American mercenary Paul Lee Kim was also 34, when he was killed in Ukraine last year and was buried in a Texas cemetery.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said that almost 6,000 foreign mercenaries, who came to Ukraine to fight on the side of the Kiev regime, have been killed since the beginning of the special operation. According to the MoD, at least 1,113 mercenaries came from the United States, 491 of whom have already been killed.
The Defense Ministry earlier stressed in a statement that the Kiev regime uses foreign mercenaries as "cannon fodder" and that "their lives are not spared by anyone in the Ukrainian command."
"Therefore, they have only one choice - to flee Ukraine or to die. The Russian armed forces will continue to destroy foreign mercenaries in the course of the special military operation, regardless of their location on the territory of Ukraine," the statement read.