Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched at least 75 criminal probes into foreign “mercenaries” fighting against Russian forces in Ukraine, the committee’s chairman, Alexander Bastrykin, told RT. He claimed that among the individuals are British, American, Norwegian, Canadian, and Georgian nationals.
In an interview published on Tuesday, Bastrykin said the Russian authorities had collected extensive evidence implicating these foreign fighters, and some have been captured by Russian troops, he added.
When asked to comment on the criminal investigations opened in Ukraine, as well as those opened by the International Criminal Court into a number of Russian officials, Bastrykin called the probes “obviously absurd and unlawful,” citing cases in which the Ukrainian authorities accused Russian nationals of war crimes despite the fact that the individuals had apparently left the Russian Army long ago.
The head of the Investigative Committee revealed that his subordinates had countered these “unlawful” Ukrainian investigations by launching at least 14 of their own probes into the Ukrainian officials behind them.