Ukraine claims Russian officer detained

Nikolai Sinitsin, spokesman for the Border Service of the FSB, told RIA Novosti that a few residents of the Novorussky village were vacationing near the lake when they decided to take a selfie at the checkpoint.

The border-guards service said it found almost 200 cases containing grenades and ammunition, including rocket-propelled shells, in the truck.

If he is confirmed as a Russian soldier, Ukraine is likely to use the case to bolster its charges that Russia is continuing direct involvement in the 15-month-long conflict and failing to honor a peace agreement worked out in Minsk, Belarus, in February.

Another man also detained late on July 25 in the truck identified himself as a pro-Russian separatist fighter. But he admitted that he was a chief of an RAO (rocket-artillery weapons unit).He is responsible for ammunition supply.

The self-proclaimed defense ministry of the rebel forces in Donetsk rejected Ukraine’s claim, saying it “provokes irony”.

Alexander Alexandrov, one of two Russian officers held, denied to Reuters television there had been any exchange envisaged between him and Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia. “An armed man in fatigues came up to them from the Ukrainian side to a distance of about 30 meters and shouted ‘Stop, ‘” Markin said.

The lawyers of jailed Ukrainian pilot and parliament member Nadia Savchenko said on July 28 that they have proof she was already captive when the two Russian journalists she is accused of killing died in shelling.

Though a fragile ceasefire seems to be holding, more than 6,500 people have been killed in the conflict in Ukraine’s industrialized Russian-speaking east.

Pyatt, who has served as Ukrainian ambassador for two years, emphasised that in spite the conflict, Ukraine had made remarkable progress on reforms in line with Western values.

She was captured by rebels and brought to Russian Federation under murky circumstances.