Since the day of the US airstrikes on Syrian government forces on the outskirts of Deir Ezzor (February 7th) western media have launched a disinfo campaign about the number of Russian PMC killed which it's escalating day after day, from the 100 KIA of the immediate aftermath we have now arrived to 400-500 KIA, I can't rule out this number will increse further, on the day of the Russian presidential elections it's possible we may hear from them that 20.000 "Russian mercenaries" have been killed...
Is there one single proof suggesting that these numbers are real? No, so why Western media are spreading this fake news and making it bigger and bigger? First to influence the presidential elections in Russia by undermining Kremlin's position in Syria, few months ago president Putin visited Syria to announce the victory against terrorism (that move was premature given the enemies don't want to end the war as we witnessed in past weeks), second to boost morale as WWIII is approaching fast so this is depicted as the first American victory in the transition from a Cold War to a Hot War and third to continue the pervasive demonization of Russia, you can clearly see this in the different words used by the mainstream media: if they are Russians they are mercenaries, if they are Americans they are Private Military Contractors.
But what are the real casualties suffered by Russian PMC on February 7th? According to informations leaked from the Russian Military 13 men have been killed and around 50 have been wounded.
https://t.co/QJXd3tAy72
I'm convinced that these numbers are closer to the truth than the ones spread by western media for several reasons, first the Russian PMC in Syria are 500-1.000, it's totally impossible that more than 100 of them can be in the same place at same time so this is the likeliest composition of the unit that was attacked by the US (Around 250 members): 50 regulars of the SAA, 50 ISIS hunters, 80 local tribesmen/Shia militias, 70-100 Russian PMC. Is it conceivable that all the PMC have been killed? In a SCI-Fi movie probably but in the real world it's almost impossible unless they were all inside the same building which it's very unlikely, and it's ridicolous to think that the Russian advisors who are responsible for the coordination of all forces in Deir Ezzor province committed such a mistake, in fact to justify the lie some rumours surfaced that the US hit an ammo depot guarded by PMC but how many soldiers are needed to supervise a depot? 10 at most and if the USAF has really hit a building not located on the frontline it would be a confirmation that the attack had nothing to do with "defence", it was a clear provocation to force Russia into a direct confrontation.
Talking about presence of US mercenaries (Blackwater/Academi) on the frontline in Donbass during the period of the open conflict between local militias and Ukrainian armed forces, their numbers continually revolved around 400, but intelligence analysts believe it was closer to 1.000.
An excerpt from this article (https://dninews.com/article/intelligence-briefing-us-mercenaries-donbass):
On the 18th of May 2014 the People’s Mayor of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov announced that: ”Kiev-controlled troops and ‘law enforcers’ sustained heavy losses during a so-called ‘counter-terrorist’ operation in Donbass. At least 650 servicemen were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in the past ten days”.
Ponomaryov went on to state, “There are 70 foreigners among them: 13 agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were killed and 12 others were wounded”.
Ponomaryov added that a private military company Analizy Systemowe Bartlomiej (ASB) lost 6 men, Greystone – 14 men, Academi (Blackwater) – 50 men.
Can I say that this report was true? No, I can't because I have no proofs.
Western media have some proofs about the 100s of "Russian mercenaries" killed on the 7th of February in Syria? They haven't.
This is to say that major powers hire private contractors to carry out military operations in dangerous battlefields and it's absolutely normal just like fabricating fake numbers of the deaths suffered by the adversary for propaganda purposes.