If Russian media are to be believed, several hundred NATO officers, including some from Poland, have already been killed in Russia. Yet there is no evidence to support these claims. The only proof offered is, quite literally, Russian words.
“NATO officers killed near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region were involved in assigning tasks to the Ukrainian army and monitoring their implementation,” declared Sergei Lipovoy, a Hero of Russia and retired Major General, speaking to the Russian outlet Argumenty i Fakty on the last day of September 2025. Kupiansk is a Ukrainian town currently witnessing intense fighting.
The Argumenty i Fakty report refers to the deaths of “nine NATO officers,” identifying them as personnel from the United States, Sweden, Poland, South Korea, Australia, France, Italy, and the Netherlands — while conveniently ignoring the fact that Australia and South Korea are not NATO members.
“NATO officers are instructors, supervisors and mentors currently on the front line, monitoring the implementation of assigned tasks and making adjustments where necessary,” Lipovoy added, implying that many more of them are active in Ukraine. He suggested that, due to the difficult situation of Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk, Kyiv will likely attempt to withdraw them from the city.
Is there any evidence that NATO officers — including a Polish one — actually died there? No. None at all.
Russian sources online have already “killed” hundreds of NATO soldiers without presenting evidence — both in seemingly reputable media outlets and in dubious posts on social media, particularly on Telegram.
One such post claimed that Britons had been killed while fighting for Ukraine. The caption read in Russian:
“A group of British tourists returned from a trip to a new European country.” (Группа британских туристов вернулась из туристический поездки по новой европейской земле). In fact, the image showed coffins containing the bodies of British soldiers who died in a plane crash in Afghanistan in 2006.
The Russians seem to take a particular delight in killing. For instance, they boasted that Russian aviation had killed 18 British SAS special forces soldiers in Odesa, though naturally, there was no evidence to support this claim.
In April 2025, Russia’s Ministry of Defence announced it had struck a café in Kryvyi Rih where, it claimed, Ukrainian officers and NATO instructors were meeting.
“Today, April 4, at 18:49 Moscow time, a precision strike was carried out with a fragmentation warhead missile on a meeting place of unit commanders and Western instructors in one of the restaurants in Kryvyi Rih. As a result, enemy losses amounted to up to 85 soldiers and foreign officers,” the statement said.
In reality, a Russian missile hit the city centre that day, near a children’s playground. Twenty-one people were killed — including nine children — and 75 others were injured, among them 12 children.
If you are wondering how Russians can believe such claims, consider this: even a Polish MP from the Confederation party once fell for a similar lie.
COMMENTS