Russian PMC fighters appeal to the International Criminal Court. They ask to start an investigation against their employers

Fighters of Russian private military companies have appealed to the International Criminal Court with a demand to start an investigation against the organizers of the PMCs. This was reported by Radio Liberty.

The appeal notes that “ PMC participants are being deliberately deprived of their legal status, which is why they not only do not receive the rehabilitation and economic support from the state that veterans are entitled to, but are also prosecuted under the law on mercenarism.”

As the signatories emphasize, “legally invalid contracts that do not regulate work in combat conditions” are concluded with PMC fighters, and they are actually taken out of Russia “for the purpose of illegal use for military purposes.”

• In Russia, private military companies are illegal, and their participants fall under the Criminal Code article on mercenarism. In recent years, high-ranking officials have periodically expressed the opinion on the need to legalize PMCs (for example, in January 2018, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke about this), but these initiatives have not been developed.
• The media regularly write about losses among the ranks of Russian PMC fighters in various regions of the world, in particular, in Syria. The authorities then usually state that the dead are volunteers who went to the conflict region on their own initiative.