The U.S. National Guard refuted a “fake news” report on Thursday from a Russian outlet identifying three U.S. service members as having been killed in combat while operating as “mercenaries” in Ukraine.
The three men reported dead by Russian media outlet Pravda are “safe” and “accounted for,” according to the Tennessee Office of the Adjutant General. Two are current members of the Tennessee National Guard, and one is a former member.
“The reporting by ‘Pravda’ is patently false,” the U.S. National Guard said in a statement on Thursday.
The Pravda report identified the three National Guard members by name and said that a Tennessee flag and other items found near the remains of killed combatants allowed the Donetsk militia to identify them after a battle in Marinka, a town in southeastern Ukraine.
US CITIZENS STANDING IN BREAD LINE KILLED IN CHERNIHIV FOLLOWING ATTACK FROM RUSSIAN FORCES
“The Tennessee Guard is aware of the fake news coming out of Russia,” Tracy O’Grady, a spokeswoman for the U.S. National Guard, told Reuters.
“They are accounted for, safe and not, as the article headline erroneously states, U.S. mercenaries killed in Donetsk People’s Republic,” the Tennessee National Guard affirmed in a statement.
The U.S. National Guard believes the three men were targeted by Pravda due to articles that appeared on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service related to a 2018 training mission in Ukraine.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The training mission at the recently bombed Yavoriv Combat Training Center concluded in 2019, and all members of the Tennessee National Guard’s 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment returned to the United States.
President Joe Biden pulled U.S. troops out of Ukraine prior to Russia’s invasion of the country last month.
