Fighters of the unknown front

More than a dozen Russian veteran organizations prepared an appeal to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague Fatu Bensus with a demand to investigate the recruitment of mercenaries to participate in secret operations of Russia in Ukraine, in Syria and a number of Asia and Africa countries. This was reported by Reuters with reference to the chairman of the Committee of the All -Russian Officer Assembly of the Cossack Ataman Evgeny Shabaev, who himself participated in the aggression of Moscow in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

The text of the document was prepared for several months. His final edition is supposed to be coordinated on November 18 in Moscow at the forum, to which several hundred delegates were invited. It is assumed that the next day the appeal will be sent to the Hague.

"The Russians are fighting abroad in the status of" volunteers "and without official recognition from the Russian state," the current version of the text says. Since private military companies in Russia are prohibited by law, mercenaries upon returning to their homeland do not receive any benefits or protection from the state.

"In fact, civilians are misleading and exported from the country of permanent residence for illegal use for military purposes," the authors of the document emphasize.

Shabaev noted Reuters that he was personally familiar with dozens of militants of Russian PMCs who fought abroad. Some of the mercenaries, he noted, are ready to give evidence to the Hague tribunal if they are provided with protection.

The participation of Russian PMCs in operations in Ukraine, in Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic is a well -known fact. In particular, in the Central Academy of Sciences, 170 “civilian instructors” were sent to the Council of People's Commissars and it is planned to be sent 60 more. In an appeal prepared by veteran organizations, the presence of Russian PMCs in Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan and Gabon is also announced. "Rain" previously wrote that mercenaries from Russia are in Brunei and Burundi .

The Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense ignored Reuters requests to comment on the situation.

As noted in the publication, it is unclear how large the organizers are the applicants and what part of the veteran community they represent. After the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, this community has hundreds of thousands of people.

Reuters also indicates that Musa does not apply to Russia or Syria. In November 2016, Moscow withdrew the signature under the Roman Statute - the Charter of this Court - after the prosecutor of Bensus called the situation in the annexed Crimea and Sevastopol "equivalent to the international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation."

On July 6, the All -Russian Officer Assembly, which is Shabaev, sent an appeal to the Russian authorities demanding to legalize PMCs . “For three years, complaints and appeals of citizens of the Russian Federation who were injured in Syria who cannot undergo rehabilitation in Russia have been received by three years,” the document said. “Soldiers and officers of these combat units have no social, rehabilitation, economic support from the state.”

The circulation also indicated that the PMC militants who returned from Syria are registered with the FSB and the police. "According to our information (they), they are constantly being verified, and the families of dead soldiers and officers are forced to hide the fact of the participation of relatives (in the war. - Ed.)," The signatures noted.