August 26, 2014
This is all very interesting. The Russian Defense Ministry says that these 10 captured Russian paratroopers, who belong to the 331st Guards Airborne Regiment of the 98th Guards Airborne Division (normally based at Kostroma outside Moscow), crossed the border by accident.
The Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU, calls this claim by Moscow into doubt by pointing out that the 10 Russians were captured in a village 14 kilometers from the Russian border! This is a massive and unpardonable navigational error by supposedly well trained airborne troops. But I don’t think anybody takes Moscow’s claim that this was an accident very seriously.
Here is the SBU material about the 10 captured paratroopers released this morning on the service’s website:
In Donetsk region ten armed Russian subversives detained for illegal crossing Ukrainian border
DONETSK region – The ATO forces suppressed a group of Russian subversives who illegally entered Ukraine.
Near the village of Dzerkalnyi (Amvrosiivskyi district, Donetsk region) the SSU jointly with the Ukrainian Army detained ten servicemen of the 331st Guards Airborne Regiment of the 98th Svirsk Guards Airborne Division of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (military unit 71211).
Russian servicemen were detained with personal documents and weapons. They testified that, on August 23, a battalion of paratroopers was redeployed by rail to the Rostov region of Russia, and approximately at 3:00 am, August 24, the unit was alerted and ordered to depart as a part of a convoy of several dozen airborne combat vehicles.
Only officers were informed that the Russian military equipment would invade the territory of Ukraine.
The SSU investigators instituted a criminal proceeding for illegal crossing the border by armed citizens of the Russian Federation.
Urgent investigative actions are under way.
Video: http://youtu.be/8vIlGeWyuWE
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