A pro-Ukrainian fighter of Moroccan origin is believed to be in the hands of Russian soldiers who captured him during an intervention in the Donbass.
A viral video has been circulating on the Web for nearly 48 hours and reports a Moroccan, fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, who was allegedly arrested by Russian soldiers during the assault on Donbass. This information, released when the city of Mariupol allegedly fell into Russian hands, has neither been confirmed nor denied by the Moroccan authorities.
Aleksandr Sladkov, known for accompanying the Russian army in war zones, is the author of the recording which was posted on his social networks. The journalist of the Russian television channel Russia 1 posed a series of questions to the supposedly captured fighter. The one who presents himself as a Moroccan is called Ismaïl Saadoun and speaks five languages, including Arabic, Russian and Ukrainian.
The man, who says he is a student at the Polytechnic Institute of kyiv, returned to the last moments of his capture. He recognizes that “the worst thing is to realize that the enemy is standing only two meters from you, when you were used to seeing him only through binoculars”. Before his arrest, pro-Russian sites had mentioned the presence in the Donbass of a Moroccan mercenary, fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers.