Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine to face trial on terrorism charges

[Luc 4,776]

Two alleged Russian soldiers who were captured while fighting in eastern Ukrainewill be tried on terrorism charges, Kiev has said.

They could reportedly face sentences of up to life in prison if found guilty of committing a lethal terrorist act. The defence ministry announced it would allow journalists to speak with the captured men in Kiev later on Monday.

The men’s capture is likely to further strain relations with Moscow and will call into question once again Russian denials of military assistance to separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine. The conflict has killed at least 6,100 people since April 2014.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation”, said on Sunday that two Russian soldiers had been captured in Shchastya, a government-controlled town near the rebel stronghold of Luhansk. The police chief of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic said Ukrainian forces had captured two militia members named Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev.

In a YouTube video posted by the Ukrainian MP Anton Gerashchenko, one of the captured men identified himself as Sergeant Alexander Alexandrov of the Third Brigade of the Russian special forces, based in Tolyatti, Russia. Speaking to two interrogators from a hospital bed, he said he had been deployed to Ukraine in March and named several other men from his unit.

On Monday at a televised press conference in Kiev, the commander of Ukraine’s 92nd Brigade, Viktor Nikolyuk, gave further details. He said a skirmish broke out between his forces and an enemy special forces reconnaissance unit that included 14 Russian servicemen on Saturday afternoon. Two Russian soldiers were wounded and later captured, and one Ukrainian soldier was killed and another wounded.

Nikolyuk displayed an automatic rifle that he said had been confiscated from Yerofeyev. The wounded soldiers were carried off the battlefield under fire, given first aid, brought to a hospital and then interrogated, Nikolyuk said.

Kiev has long-insisted that Russian soldiers are fighting in eastern Ukraine, but Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have insisted their troops are not present there. The most that Moscow will admit is that Russian volunteers could be fighting there.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on whether the two captured fighters were Russian servicemen. “We have repeatedly said, and the defence ministry has too, that there are no Russian soldiers in Donbass,” he told journalists, using a traditional name for the coalmining areas of eastern Ukraine.

Addressing himself to Putin in a Facebook post, Gerashchenko offered to exchange the two captured men after their trial for 400 Ukrainians held by the separatists and for pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who is being held in pre-trial detention in Moscow. But the security service chairman, Valentin Nalivaichenko, later said such a prisoner exchange was not under consideration.

In August, Kiev exchanged 10 captured Russian paratroopers whom the Kremlin claimed had accidentally wandered into Ukrainian territory for 63 Ukrainian soldiers who had crossed into Russia to flee fighting.

According to evidence gathered by the media and soldiers’ rights advocates, Russian troops have been mobilised en masse to fight in eastern Ukraine twice. In August and September, a large contingent of Russian troops – a rebel leader said at the time that 1,200 military personnel and 150 pieces of equipment had arrived from Russia – reportedly helped rebel fighters turn back a Ukrainian advance that had made it to the outskirt of Donetsk and Luhansk. In January and February, Russian tank units reportedly spearheaded the capture of the strategic transport hub Debaltseve.

But Russian trainers and special forces have also been operating in eastern Ukraine in smaller numbers throughout the conflict, according to media reports. In October, a group of men in Russian military uniforms told a reporter that they were Russian soldiers who had come to Luhansk to train the local population.

Separately on Monday, the newspaper Kommersant reported that a Russian conscript had appealed to the European court of human rights after army authorities denied his request to perform civilian rather than military service, which by law can be allowed to those whose personal beliefs prohibit them from fighting. In the first such case to be brought to the court, Sergei Kholkin said he had refused to join the military out of fear that he would be sent to fight in eastern Ukraine.

 

 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/18/russian-soldiers-ukraine-trial-terrorism-charges

Putin can keep denying that Russian militaries are present in East-Ukraine, just like he did with Crimea, but there's been so much proof by now, tbh. But on the other hand, harder sanctions won't help because it'll only make Russia more aggressive. It's a complicated issue, but it's been confirmed numerous times that it was a Russian BUK rocket that shot down MH17, that Russian military is present in East-Ukraine and that Russia is working hard to destabilize the region.

 

edit: mess is nobody interested in East-Ukraine anymore?

[Economy 52,844]

I say get saudi Arabia to use that eccess capacity they have to increase oil production another 2 million barrels a day. In fact, get all of OPEC to increase production

 

We also have the biggest glut of oil reserves in history we can tap into. Theres literally like 500 Million barrels of oil or more in main storage hubs (not counting smaller ones that arent even kept track of)

 

Like put a sanction where they cant sell their oil. Wed be fine for quite a while but their economy would totally implode. Jobs, revenue, everything. Their currency would also collapse

 

they would crack before the rest of the world did.