Two American mercenaries have been killed while fighting for Ukraine against Russian forces in December, Newsweek has reported.
The deaths of the US citizens, identified as Brian Zacherl and Ty Wingate, has been confirmed by their relatives on social media, the outlet said in an article on Monday.
They were apparently members of the International Legion, which is subordinate to the Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR), it added.
Zacherl’s nephew wrote in a post on Facebook on December 5 that he had been “killed in battle a couple of days ago,” the article read. The mercenary’s wife and two children remained in Kiev, “waiting for conditions to allow the recovery of his body from the battlefield,” according to the nephew.
The mercenary’s father, Brian Zacherl Senior, is a former US marine who also worked for the CIA between 2013 to 2018, RIA Novosti reported after studying his accounts on social media.
Wingate died on December 3 when a Russian drone struck an armored personnel carrier he was traveling in, Newsweek reported, citing his sister. He left behind a pregnant wife, she said.
There is no official data on the number of US citizens who have been killed since the escalation between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022. According to figures from the Kiev-based Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, which hosts an exhibition on foreign mercenaries participating in the ongoing conflict, there had been 92 American fatalities as of early September.
The exhibition’s curator, Yury Gorpinich, told the New York Times that “several thousand” US citizens have served with Ukrainian forces so far.
In April, the Kiev government simplified rules for recruiting foreigners into its military as Ukraine struggles to replenish heavy losses suffered on the front line amid mass draft avoidance and desertions.
Over 15,000 mercenaries, mostly from Poland, the US, and Georgia, have taken part in the fighting on Kiev’s side, according to estimates by Moscow. Nearly 6,500 of them have been killed in action as of December 2024, according to Russian figures.
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Russia has consistently warned that any non-Ukrainians serving in Kiev’s military will be regarded as mercenaries, who are not covered by the Geneva Convention protections usually granted to combatants.
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