Nearly 8,000 mercenaries from the notorious Wagner Group have been deployed by Russia in the conflict in Ukraine, but they have suffered heavy casualties, MPs have been told.
Giving evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Christo Grozev, executive director of the Bellingcat investigative website, said 3,000 members of the private military company were thought to have been killed on the battlefield.
He said sources within the group - the largest of three mercenary groups involved in the conflict - had told them that the numbers fighting alongside Russian forces had been "much higher" than had been expected.
