Russia considers all PMC fighters detained the night before last near Minsk to be its citizens and will not allow their extradition to Ukraine. It was previously reported that 14 of the 33 detainees fought in the Donbass; official Kyiv has already demanded that the Belarusian authorities extradite the former militiamen for criminal prosecution.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said at a briefing today that the Kremlin considers all those detained to be its citizens and does not recognize Ukrainian citizenship, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Meanwhile, the acting head of the Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk, Pyotr Vrublevsky, was summoned to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry today.
“Taking into account the confirmed information about the participation of a number of detainees in hostilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, the Ukrainian origin and the presence of Ukrainian citizenship of some of them, relevant information was requested from Petro Vrublevsky that can be used for a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the reasons for their presence in Belarus,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.