MINSK (Sputnik) — The Russian Defense Ministry demanded on Monday that Kiev return Warrant Officer Maksim Odintsov and contract service Staff Sgt. Aleksander Baranov, calling the kidnapping a flagrant provocation.
"Our proper authorities are tending to the situation. We believe that this was an illegal provocation made by the Ukrainian secret service on Russian territory in respect to Russian citizens," Lavrov told reporters in Belarus.
The ministry said that the two Russian soldiers were kidnapped on November 20 and whisked across the border to the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine with an apparent goal to press criminal charges against them.