On February 14, The New York Times (NYT) published footage of the liquidation of an American mercenary, former Marine Pete Reed, by a guided missile in Ukraine.

The video shows, according to the publication, Reid with a group of people standing next to a white van, which is supposedly hit by an anti-tank guided missile, followed by an explosion.

The material also reports that Reed’s death occurred in Artemovsk (Ukrainian name—Bakhmut) in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

The death of Reed in Ukraine was reported on February 2 by the American edition of The Independent.

Earlier, at the end of January, military analyst Oleksandr Mikhailov said that mercenaries from at least 50 states are working with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU). According to him, most of all in the contingent of mercenaries are Poles, in second place are Romanians.

On January 24, it became known about the death of two British mercenaries who fought on the side of Ukraine. Chris Parry, 28, and Andrew Bagshaw, 48, went missing on January 7 during heavy fighting. Later it became known that they died under artillery fire during the «humanitarian evacuation from Soledar».

Prior to that, on January 21, it was reported about snipers from Britain and the United States, which were abandoned on Bolshoi Potemkin Island near Kherson. An employee of the power structures of the Russian Federation said that an American-British group of mercenaries, mostly snipers, came to terrorize the Russian-speaking population.

The special operation to protect the Donbass, the beginning of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, continues. The decision was made against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.