Firefighters extinguish a blaze in damaged private houses following Russian strike in Kyiv region on May 25, 2025, amid Russian invasion in Ukraine. Sergei Supinsky, AFP/File
MANILA — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Friday said it was verifying a report that a Filipino was killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“The AFP has taken note of the report. At this time, we have yet to establish confirmation or validation of the information,” AFP spokesperson Colonel Francel Margareth Padilla said in a message to ABS-CBN News.
Padilla said the military has yet to confirm the identity of the reported Filipino fighter and the circumstances surrounding the reported incident.
“Until such verification is completed, it would be premature for the AFP to make definitive statements regarding the circumstances surrounding the reported incident,” she added.
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The statement came following a report by RBC-Ukraine, a major independent Ukrainian news agency, that Kyiv’s intelligence agency disclosed that a Filipino had been killed while fighting for the Russian military in the Donetsk region.
The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine identified the reported fighter as a 37-year-old from Metro Manila.
According to the report, the fighter secured a Russian visa in January this year and traveled to Russia in April. He allegedly signed a contract with the Russian armed forces on May 3.
The Ukrainian intelligence agency claimed that the Filipino underwent around a week of military training before being deployed to the frontline.
It said he was killed in late May during an assault near Katerynivka in the Donetsk region.
The Philippine government previously warned Filipinos against participating as mercenaries or joining foreign armed conflicts.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The war has since killed and displaced thousands of people, and drawn foreign fighters and volunteers to both sides of the conflict.
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