Avakov mentioned the number of militants and military equipment in the Donbass

As of today, 35.5 thousand militants are fighting in the Donbass, consisting of regular Russian military, mercenaries and local population. This was reported at the Forum on Security in Kyiv today by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, - correspondent of the OstroV reports.

"According to the MIA, the 1st and 2nd corps in the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts under the guise of paramilitary units of the "DNR" and "LNR" (which are in fact assigned to the 8th Army of the Southern Military District of the AFRF) consist of personnel of the Russian Federation, mercenaries and part of the local population. There are 35.5 thousand of them only in the Donbass with 478 tanks, 848 armored vehicles, 750 artillery systems and mortars, 208 multiple rocket launchers, 363 anti-tank weapons and 419 anti-aircraft weapons", - he reported.

"These are not separatists and not insurgents, they bought these weapons not in the commissary which they captured during the aggression. And the amount of armored forces here, let the British minister forgive me, is more than in the UK", - the minister said.