Apart from inscriptions on satin ribbons claiming that Puri’s “sacrifice was not in vain,” there is nothing else on the grave to suggest that the 37-year-old died for the interests of a foreign country hundreds of miles from Germany.
German media previously reported that Puri, who arrived in Ukraine in April 2022, was killed during a Russian artillery attack on Ukrainian positions in March 2024 while serving as the commander of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion unit.
Sputnik correspondent finds the grave of another deceased German mercenary near Nuremberg
The soldier of fortune named Stefan Roland Puri, born in 1986, commanded the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ “Foreign Legion,” his death was reported by the German media.
The RND media group… https://t.co/6a0E8voTTg pic.twitter.com/Bx6DHqaMIq
Notably, Puri’s grave is located in the same cemetery where another German mercenary, 38-year-old Rene Muller, is buried. He joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion in 2022 and died a year later in a Russian mortar attack.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) earlier said in a statement that a total of 5,962 foreign mercenaries, who came to Ukraine to fight on the side of the Zelensky regime, have been killed since the beginning of the special military operation. According to the MoD, at least 235 mercenaries came from Germany, 88 of whom have already been killed.
In a separate statement, the Defense Ministry stressed that the Kiev regime uses foreign mercenaries as “cannon fodder” and that “their lives are not spared by anyone in the Ukrainian command.”
“Therefore, they have only one choice – to flee Ukraine or to die. The Russian armed forces will continue to destroy foreign mercenaries in the course of the special military operation, regardless of their location on the territory of Ukraine,” the statement pointed out.
The MoD has repeatedly warned foreign citizens against traveling to Ukraine, emphasizing that mercenaries are not combatants under international humanitarian law, which is why they don’t have the right to prisoner of war status.