Ukrainian soldiers in cooperation with the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, captured a Russian-backed militant in eastern Donbas, the SBU press center reported on Jan. 4.
The service said the captured enemy fighter was originally from the currently Russian-occupied city of Horlivka in Donetsk Oblast, some 600 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.
He reportedly joined the Russian-backed militant forces of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) in September 2014 as a machine gunman. He participated in hostilities against the Ukrainian military since then.
“In February 2015, the formation’s leaders appointed him as an anti-tank missile gunner,” the service added.
“The militants were trained by Russian regular military personnel. In 2018, the criminal was reappointed as a machine gunman at a terrorist unit.”
In a video published by the SBU, the alleged militant, with his voice and face disguised, tells that he was trained by a “Russian national under the nom-de-guerre ‘Gruzin’ (meaning Georgian in Russian).'”
The SBU added that the captured prisoner was being investigated regarding his participation in a terrorist organization, which is punished by 8 to 15 years of jail time under Ukrainian legislation.
The SBU did not reveal his identity.
Several days before that, however, the Russian-backed militants boasted about a Ukrainian soldier taken prisoner in combat. On Jan. 2, they revealed an interrogation video showing the allegedly captured Ukrainian combatant identified as 35-year-old Andriy Kachinksiy of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.
In the video, the soldier was saying that he had joined the army to escape imprisonment by Ukrainian authorities for public intoxication in April 2018. He allegedly joined a combat unit deployed to the Volnovakha area between the cities of Donetsk and Mariupol in the Donetsk Oblast.
According to the video, he faced severe beatings by his fellow soldiers over his unwillingness to consume alcohol, and poor conditions of service at the frontline.
He allegedly was captured by Russian-backed forces during an unsuccessful incursion raid of Ukrainian forces shortly before the New Year’s Eve.
Following the Jan. 2 publication, the 128th Brigade confirmed that one of its servicemen had been revealed as missing on Dec. 29 and all attempts to find his whereabouts had been unsuccessful.
The brigade’s press service refuted the militants’ assertions regarding any offensive actions of Ukrainian combat units.
However, they admitted that an identification number seen on a Kalashnikov AKS-74U assault rifle in the video had been assigned to a missed servicemen.
The next day on Jan. 3, the Ukrainian unit eventually admitted that Andriy Kachinkiy belonged to the brigade’s personnel, and that it was doing everything possible to bring him back from captivity with the involvement of international organizations.
“We understand that (Kachinskiy’s) responses were given under pressure and by no means blame him for that,” the press service claimed on its Facebook page. “Moreover, we stress that he is not to be held responsible for his words.”
Meanwhile, low-intensity hostilities along the 400-kilometer frontline of the Donbas continued throughout Jan. 3 and 4, despite another ceasefire announced in late December.
According to Ukraine’s Joint Operative Headquarters, three military clashes were spotted over the previous 24 hours, with one Ukrainian soldier and two Russian-backed militants wounded in action.
