You're reading: Ukrainian serviceman detained in Russia returns to Ukraine

A Ukrainian soldier, who was arrested on January 14, 2016 by Russian law enforcers on the Ukrainian-Russian border, has returned to Ukraine, head of the press center for the Ukrainian military headquarters Oleksiy Mazepa has said.

“Last night he returned to Ukraine. Now our experts are working with him to find out all the circumstances of the incident,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on Jan. 16.

As reported, on Jan. 13, Border guards in Russia’s Rostov region detained a Ukrainian military serviceman for allegedly illegal stay in Russian territory. The Rostov regional border department of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said that border guards detained the serviceman in the community of Chertkovo. He had allegedly crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border [through] bypassing an official crossing point and did not have identification documents.

The staff of the anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine confirmed the detention of a Ukrainian serviceman and said it was looking into the details of the incident. “A Ukrainian contract serviceman was detained on a road between the Ukrainian populated area of Milove and the Russian one Chertkovo. His surname is Shliakhovy. The causes and circumstances of the incident are being looked into. At the present moment, our serviceman is [being] held by the Russian side,” Mazapa told Interfax-Ukraine.