MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2020) The detention of 33 Russian citizens in the Belarusian capital of Minsk is a result of a provocation staged by Ukrainian intelligence services, the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
Last week, Belarus said it had detained 33 Russian citizens and claimed that they were members of a private military company. Belarusian investigators said they were suspecting the detained of preparing unrest in the country ahead of the upcoming presidential vote. The Russian presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that the detained were likely to be working for a private security form en route to another country and did not break any laws.
Komsomolskaya Pravda claims that some "curators" from Ukraine presenting themselves as employees of the Rosneft oil giant were recruiting former members of the Wagner Group private military company. The "curators" said that the recruited people would be used for protecting oil facilities abroad.
According to the newspaper, Artyom Milyaev (also known as "Shaman"), who fought in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, expressed readiness to find 180 people for the "curators." The former employees of private military firms were said they would be sent to Venezuela in five groups. The first one was going to leave for Minsk on July 24.
This first group included primarily Ukrainian citizens, who fought in Donbas, and after Minsk, they were to go to Caracas via Istanbul and Havana.
While members of the first group were preparing for the journey, their tickets - which were booked in Ukraine - were canceled and rebooked for July 30, which meant that important evidence had been eliminated. A day before the departure from Minsk, on July 29, 33 people from this group were detained.
With this provocation, Kiev wanted to hit both the Vagner Group and Rosneft, as well as seek the extradition of the detainees to Ukraine, Komsomolskaya Pravda concluded.
The newspaper has submitted the gathered materials to Russia's Investigative Committee.
