You're reading: Court declines Russian man Yerofeyev’s petition for prisoner of war status

The lawyer for an officer of the Main Investigative Department of the General Command of the Russian Armed Forces, Yevgeny Yerofeye,v has lost a petition for her client to be granted the status of a prisoner of war.

Filing the petition at the Holosiyivsky District Court in Kyiv on Nov. 10, Oksana Sokolovska said the status is crucial for the course of subsequent inquiries, an Interfax correspondent said. The prosecutors objected to the petition.

For his part, the case victim, Aidar battalion soldier Bohdan Harkusha, who was injured in a fight involving Yerofeyev and A. Alexandrov, spoke against Yerofeyev being declared a prisoner of war because he said what is happening in Ukraine is not a declared war “but an anti-terrorist operation, and I consider the defendants to be terrorists.”

The court rejected Sokolovska’s petition.

Alexandrov and Yerofeyev were detained in the anti-terrorist operation zone in the town of Schastia, Luhansk region, on May 16, 2015. One was injured in the arm, the other in the leg.

Ukraine said they were Russian military servicemen. The Russian Defense Ministry said in response that both Alexandrov and Yerofeyev are Russian citizens but were not active members of the Russian Armed Forces at the time of the arrest.

The Kyiv court ordered that the Russian men be remanded in custody.