DISINFO: Russian missile strike hits foreign mercenary base in Zaporizhzhia
SUMMARY
A Russian Army missile strike destroyed a temporary base of pro-Ukrainian foreign mercenaries in the Zaporizhia region.
RESPONSE
This false claim advances recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives concerning Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and exploits the trope of "foreign mercenaries" supposedly fighting on Ukraine's side in their thousands.
The only Russian missile strike in the Zaporizhzhia region recorded on that day (10 August 2023) hit the Reikartz Hotel in Zaporizhzhia city centre, killing one person and injuring 16. The hotel is known to regularly host foreign journalists, UN staff, and NGO personnel.
In a statement released on the day of the attack, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown called the strike "utterly inadmissible" and noted the hotel "was the UN base for the operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol" in May 2022. She further stated that the "number of indiscriminate attacks hitting civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring civilians, have reached unimaginable levels."
See here for our debunk of the claim that Ukraine has thousands of foreign mercenaries fighting on its side.