Pavel Kanygin, special correspondent for
Novaya Gazeta,
has visited the two Russian POWs from the GRU spetsnaz captured by Ukrainian forces this week.
He said that two dozen journalists were allowed to visit the prisoners in groups. They were requested not to ask any questions, with reference to instructions from the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the wishes of the detainees themselves.
But inevitably questions were asked and answers given.
We note that since these soldiers were wounded, and also captured, they are under duress and their testimony and statements may not be valid.
Kanygin says the Russian soldiers are being guarded by two men in black masks. First they were taken to see Yerofeyev. He covered his face with his hand when cameras were turned on him. But he didn't refuse to answer questions.
The Interpreter has the translation:
I would like to express gratitude to the doctors who provided me quality care. To the surgeon. To my relations that everything is fine. I'm alive and well. Of course, I don't want all of this to get in the press.
Kanygin: How are you being treated?
Yerofeyev: Here -- well...
The journalists are then taken to another hospital room to see Aleksandrov.
Kanygin: They are saying here that you are contract servicemen of the Russian army?
Aleksandrov makes a long pause.
"We made the agreement -- without questions."
Kanygin added that "the health of the wounded men does not cause worries, which I think is important for relatives and friends to know"
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the men were not in the regular Russian army and didn't have any information on them. Ukrainian officials said they refused to exchange the soldiers and wished to try them publicly for terrorists acts
As we reported earlier, Captain Yevgeny Vladimirovich Erofeyeyev and Sergeant Aleksandr Anatolievich Aleksandrov were captured near Schastye in the Lugansk region and were transferred to Kiev.
As we reported earlier, Ukraine's
TSN television channel interviewed both prisoners, Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Yevgeniy Yerofeyev, in a hospital in Kiev.
While Aleksandrov stated in the interrogation video that he was a soldier from the 3rd Spetsnaz Brigade from Togliatti, his commander, Yerofeyev, told TSN that he was a "militia fighter from Lugansk."
Novaya Gazeta also published its research on the captured men, explaining essentially that regarding the seeming conflicting statements of the soldier being in "the people's militia" or "the Russian forces" that in fact both could be true.
Sources in the "Lugansk People's Republic" said that the two men were "people's militia" but according to
Novaya Gazeta's sources they were deployed as Russian GRU spetsnaz within the "people's militia".
They said the Russian soldiers were undermined by their poor knowledge of the locality and mistakes made by the Lugansk command. Sources in the self-proclaimed "Lugansk People's Republic" (LNR) confirmed the stories of the two Russian soldiers "with some caveats and corrections," says
Novaya Gazeta.
According to the "official LNR version," a Ukrainian diversionary and reconnaissance group (DRG) was crossing the Seversky Donetsk River when they encountered the LNR fighters and were wounded in battle and then taken prisoner.
They said that while doing reconnaissance of an area near Schastye where the 80th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was rotating out, the LNR fighters didn't realize that the 92nd brigade was rotating in and had been reinforced. They say the clash took place "in a neutral zone" and led to one Ukrainian soldier being killed and Yerofeyev and Aleksandrov being wounded and taken prisoner. Writes
Novaya Gazeta (translation by
The Interpreter):
The ID demonstrated at the briefing in Lugansk most likely were authentic: Ukrainians, Russians and citizens of other states are taken into service in the "People's Militia." The consolidation of all militarized divisions into one structure has continued since the fall of last year and has even cost the positions, freedom and even lives of many of the field commanders and their subordinates. So Yerofeyev and Aleksandrov would hardly have been included in the DRG if they had not formally joined the ranks of the People's Militia. The Lugansk and the Donetsk command may not possess objective information about their past and even present, including military experience. Recall, for example the scandalous story about the parade in Donetsk which was commanded by a man who was on the federal wanted list in Russia.
Novaya Gazeta added that they could not find any information on Russian social networks about men with these names nor in databases of Russian law-enforcement agencies. This opens up the question as to whether these are their real names or are prepared intelligence legends although
Novaya Gazeta does not speculate.
Novaya reminds us further that not just the GRU but the FSB have been involved in the war in Ukraine (translation by
The Interpreter):
We note that since the first months of the armed conflict, the region most likely entered the sphere of interests of the FSB. Recently we recall two high-profile stories in which the "Office" [the FSB] figured one way or another. In early April in St. Petersburg, Oleg Bugrov, the former "defense minister of the LNR" was detained and later arrested in St. Petersburg. In fact he was charged not with war crimes but under and economic article -- for selling counterfeit pipes. And recently officers of the "ministry of state security of the LNR" handed over to Russian border guards a citizen of Ukraine sought on the territory of Ukraine, the former "militiaman" Mikhail Tarasenkov. The border guards who are part of the structure of the FSB, handed over Tarasenkov to their colleagues from the SBU without hesitation.
-- Catherine A. Fitzpatrick