The video, posted by the S.B.U., Ukraine’s internal security service, showed what seemed to be an interrogation. It began with Petr introducing himself as a “citizen of the Russian Federation.” A green curtain hung behind him, the only visible detail in an otherwise featureless tableau. Under questioning, Petr described his involvement in an act of outright aid to Russian-#speaking rebels, who by then were three months into a grinding war with the government in Kiev. His brigade, he said, was stationed in Rostov, a region of Russia that borders Ukraine.
After a month of living in tents, the soldiers received an order from the company commander. They were told to strip 14 armored vehicles of all identifying markings, everything from the license plates to the serial numbers on the gun turrets, and then drive them toward the border. There, Petr told his interrogators in a rushed monotone, “we were told that the vehicles were handed off to some Chechens, and they were to be passed to the rebels.
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