Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak claims that Russian military servicemen are fighting against Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine, although it is hard to identify them, as they bear no insignia or other identification signs.
“After the summer campaign, when we captured soldiers from the
Russian armed forces, when we seized their hardware in which there were
packing lists, technical certificates and [other] documents clearly
indicating what military base it belongs to and where it is located and
where this serviceman was born, now, as a rule, Russian military
hardware and personnel entering Ukrainian territory are absolutely
depersonalized,” Poltorak said at a news briefing in Kyiv on Jan. 31.
“Those whom we capture have a DPR military ID in their left pocket
and a Russian passport in the right one,” Poltorak said, suggesting that
this is done to mislead the international public and make it believe
that there are no Russian troops in the Ukrainian territory.
Poltorak also said in response to a question from a journalist that
he personally was ready “to provide assistance in acquiring Ukrainian
citizenship” to foreigners who “have come to us and are defending our
land.”
Meanwhile, Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Viktor
Muzhenko said recently that Ukrainian government forces were not
fighting regular units of the Russian armed forces, although he said he
possessed facts of involvement of individual Russian servicemen on the
militia side.
“We have facts of involvement of Russian military servicemen, Russian
citizens, in the fighting on the side of illegal armed units. We are
not engaged in military actions with regular units of the Russian army,”
Muzhenko said at a meeting with military attaches of foreign countries
accredited in Ukraine in Kyiv on Jan. 29.
Muzhenko claimed also that the Ukrainian military have “enough forces
and resources to deal a final and even fatal blow to the illegal armed
units.”
A number of high-ranking Russian officials have repeatedly denied
allegations of involvement of Russian military servicemen in the
conflict in Donbas over the past several months. In particular, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a recent press conference in
Moscow that these allegations were baseless. “I say every time: if you
allege this so confidently, show the facts. But nobody can present
facts, or they don’t want to, which I don’t know,” Lavrov said.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov yet again denied
allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian troops were fighting
among the militia in a Jan. 30 statement.
