Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has refuted US media reports about Russian contractors allegedly operating in crisis-torn Libya, calling them “speculation”.

Italian Parliament members from the governing party have warned that hundreds of Russian mercenaries fighting for Khalifa Haftar’s forces in Libya constitute a concerning turning point in the conflict and damage national reconciliation efforts before the international conference in Berlin.

The missile strike on a migrant detention centre in Libya’s Tajoura was carried out by a fighter plane from a foreign country, according to a confidential UN investigation seen by BBC Arabic.

Three people were killed Tuesday in Libya in an airstrike carried out by forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, according to the Government of National Accord (GNA).

Libya’s High Council of State has called on the country’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord to boycott and sue countries, especially the UAE, that support a military offensive by eastern Libyan forces of Khalifa Haftar against the Tripoli-based government.

Hundreds of Russian mercenaries, many highly trained and well-armed, are fighting alongside renegade Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter as he seeks to oust the country’s United Nations-backed government, according to Libyan military commanders and fighters, as well as U.S. military and other Western officials.

Sirte Protection Force has confirmed that three of its members were injured in an air raid carried out by an UAE-backed drone strike of Khalifa Haftar’s forces on positions of the force south of Sirte.

Moscow is plunging deeper into a war of armed drones in a strategic hot spot rich with oil, teeming with migrants and riddled with extremists.

The so-called Ajdabiya operations room of Haftar’s forces has issued orders to police officers in the city and its suburbs to join the fighting axes in Tripoli immediately, giving them a one week ultimatum to join in.

Flights heading to the Libyan capital were forced to divert on Sunday after air strikes, reportedly carried out by personnel loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, targeted Tripoli’s only functioning airport.