Ukraine vows to show off captured Russians
Ukraine has vowed to show off two Russian soldiers it claims to have captured while fighting Moscow-backed forces in the separatist east.
The politically-charged declaration came as a tenuous February truce was broken by more violence that claimed the lives of at least four Ukrainian servicemen.
Russia firmly denies any involvement in the Ukrainian conflict and accuses the pro-Western leadership in Kyiv of waging a war of attrition against its own people in the industrial east of the ex-Soviet state.
But it concedes that some “volunteers” and off-duty soldiers may have crossed Russia’s southwestern border to support separatist militias fighting in Ukraine’s Lugansk and Donetsk rustbelt.
“For us, it is very important to present to the entire world Russian soldiers who supposedly do not exist on our land,” Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov told AFP.
“These are fighters from the 3rd non-divisional brigade of the special forces. They are based in (the Volga River city of) Togliatti,” he said.
The Russian defence ministry for its part said the two men were ex-soldiers “who were no longer in the Russian armed forces at the time of their capture”.
Earlier on Monday, Ukrainian army chief Viktor Muzhenko called in reporters for a special briefing designed to showcase what Kyiv hopes is irrefutable evidence of Russia’s entanglement in one of Europe’s bloodiest recent wars.
A fatigues-clad Muzhenko assistant held up a nine-millimetre calibre rifle he said was seized from one of the invading Russians.
Muzhenko added that Ukraine had invited observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe – a Cold War-era body designed to secure peace across the continent – to visit the prisoners at their current medical facility in Kyiv.
But he appeared to backtrack from an earlier army promise to parade the wounded prisoners before international media crews.
Such a step would almost certainly outrage the Kremlin and potentially violate international treaties on the humane treatment of prisoners of war.
A report released last week and based on research done by murdered Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov claimed that more than 200 Russian soldiers have been killed fighting in Ukraine.
-AFP