MOSCOW: A former leader of pro-Russian separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine on Thursday announced he was launching a support network for Russian volunteers who fought in the conflict and the families of those killed.

“A lot of people lost their health, lost their jobs, there are the families of the fallen,” Alexander Borodai said at a news conference in Moscow.

Kiev and the West say that Russia is deploying its regular troops to eastern Ukraine to back up the pro-Russian separatist region.

Moscow insists that its citizens fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region are all either volunteers or troops on leave from their jobs.

The new Union of Donbass Volunteers will be for “all of those who took part in defending Donbass in one way or another. Everyone who was there,” Borodai said.

“They all need help, we need to help them. For that we need to unite,” said the former self-proclaimed prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic.

He estimated that “between 30,00 and 50,000 Russian volunteers” fought in eastern Ukraine.

The organization aims to gain the same status and benefits for volunteers who fought in eastern Ukraine as for veterans of military conflicts, Borodai said.