According to the information spread by Russian media, which cite an official representative of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Dnipro battalion private Serhiy Litvynov had been arrested on Russian territory. However, the Ukrainian MIA says that there has never been such a fighter in the battalion in question.
“The Investigative Committee of Russia was proof of the involvement of the National Guard and Right Sector in the torture and killing of the civilians whose bodies were discovered in mass graves near Donetsk,” says Rossiya-24 anchor.
“A fighter from the Ukrainian Dnipro battalion is being transferred to Moscow from Rostov-on-the-Don. Serhiy Litvynov is accused of murdering civilians in the southeast of Ukraine,” is how 5th Channel presents the news.
According to Serhiy Markin, a private from Dnipro battalion, the so-called Serhiy Litvynov had been arrested on the territory of the Russian Federation, allegedly he had crossed the border by himself, and went in for treatment in one of the Rostov-on-the-Don hospitals under the guise of a civilian. So far the Russian Investigative Committee website has not provided any photos or footage depicting the so-called detainee.
This elicited a swift reaction from Advisor to the Minister for Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Herashchenko, who immediately denied the information on his Facebook page. According to Herashchenko, there had never been such a fighter in Dnipro battalion, and battalion Dnipro itself had never had missions on the territory of Luhansk oblast.
“This is most likely another actor similar to the horrible actress who spoke about the three-year-old boy who was crucified in a square in Sloviansk, and his mother was tied to a tank, and she saw it all happen, such evidence is worth nothing. It is all garbage and lies,” Herashchenko said live on Channel 112.
This information was confirmed by Dnipro battalion press secretary Kateryna Leonova to Radio Liberty.
“I spoke with our human resource department, and the deputy command of Dnipro-1 Yury Bereza. The conclusion in unanimous: this is just propaganda, it is not true because our battalion never had such a soldier. First, we never had him. Second, Dnipro battalion has never been to Luhansk oblast, they have a slightly different geography,” she says.
The mass grave, which have ascribed to them the crimes committed by so-called Serhiy Litvynov, according to representative of the separatists, the so-called ‘Vice Prime Minister’ of ‘DNR’ group Andriy Purgin, contained 9 bodies, and not 400, as was reported by Russian media and even the head of the Russian MFA Sergey Lavrov.
During a press conference on Wednesday during Lavrov stated: “This is obviously a war crime. Over 400 bodies have been discovered in graves near Donetsk, and we are counting on the Western capitals not to keep these facts silent.”
According to Lavrov, Russia informed the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the UN of their discovery and asked for an investigation.
