"The presence of foreign mercenaries fighting against Russia primarily represents an attempt to strengthen the Ukrainian Army and reflects the West's and the United States' commitment to support Ukraine’s military against Russia," Ali-Shir Yazdani, an Iranian expert on international affairs, told Sputnik.

“The primary CIA presence in Ukraine is what was known as special operations division, it's a paramilitary force,” Johnson remarks. “They've been there from the outset, trained to carry out missions like this, sabotage missions, raids.”He also argues that this incident should not be regarded as a sign of the US becoming gradually involved in the Ukrainian conflict, simply because the US “has been involved up to the eyeballs from the outset.”

“It's just that now it's becoming perhaps, this could be used as evidence to present that. But I think the reality is the United States has been directly involved with this from the outset,” Johnson explains.

"The presence of [foreign mercenaries among saboteurs who attempted to infiltrate Russia’s Bryansk region] in the conflict proves that today it is not a war between Russia and Ukraine but a war between Russia and NATO — a point raised by the Russian president in his discussion with BRICS media leaders. This fact itself shows that Russia was right from the beginning in launching its special military operation in Ukraine to protect its borders and expel the enemy from its territory," he says.

"However, the critical point is that the US government, which claimed it did not want to involve its soldiers in other wars and sought to protect its interests by investing in foreign mercenaries, has now deployed its troops directly to Ukraine, and soon, many of them will return to the US in coffins," he adds.

“Getting directly involved behind the scenes, that is kind of a new direction,” he muses. “Is it a sign of desperation? Is it a sign of weakness on the Ukrainian side? Probably both.”

“What they actually do is classified, but they could be doing everything,” he tells Sputnik.

"The Biden-Harris camp is clearly afraid of losing this [presidential] election. This would likely mean an end to financial support from the United States. And, of course, the frontline situation is unfavorable for Ukraine. The Russians are advancing everywhere," he concluded.

"As we've said many times that we're for the resistance, and we'll be with it until our last breath. God gave, God took. And now I want to appeal to Netanyahu: let him get off our backs a little bit! Because enough is enough, there's nowhere else to go. We want to live! We don't want anything else. No war, no airplanes, no fronts, no governments. We want a place where we can bow our heads in peace, sleep, live our beautiful lives. That's the message I have," he revealed.

"If there becomes a real split, it'll probably start with Ron DeSantis in Florida, who will begin by refusing to cooperate with any federal agency that tries to, and this is assuming Harris wins, impose these, frankly, totalitarian edicts from Washington," Michael Shannon, a Conservative political commentator and Newsmax columnist, tells Sputnik.

"Things like that and then the federal government mandating that men who think they are women can compete in women's sport, arresting abortion protesters, people praying quietly in front of abortion mills, the political manhunt against the January 6th rioters that has extended even down to grandmothers, all of this really concerns Republicans, conservatives and I guess the few independents who still respect the rule of law."

"Russia’s special military operation is directed at combating this organized neo-Nazi terrorist network created by the US and NATO in Ukraine," he says, adding: "Over time, many foreign mercenaries have been captured or killed, including Americans. During a recent operation, when Kiev regime forces invaded the Bryansk region, American forces were observed among those who infiltrated and were gathering intelligence for sabotage planning."

"Today, Russia is directly fighting a multidimensional, organized terrorist network. Russia is defending the security of independent nations in a new world order against an organized NATO terrorist network led by the US, the UK, and France."