A military corruption case in Russian court accidentally documents Russia's military presence in eastern Ukraine
Court documents filed in Kirovsky District Court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, officially recognize the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko wrote on his Telegram channel on Dec.16.
Tsaplienko drew attention to files in a corruption case about food supplies to the Russian military who are on alert in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
“The defendant supplied food to the Russian military in the so-called DPR and LPR (self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics),” Tsaplienko wrote on Telegram.
The case file read that an unnamed defendant almost caused disruption to food supplies to Russian soldiers who were “on alert” in the occupied part of Ukraine in May-November 2019, the journalist reported. The suspect tried to resolve his problems by offering bribes, but failed.
However, the judge of the Rostov’s Kirovsky Court caused even bigger problem for the Kremlin, as he put this information into an official document and made it publicly available.
At the same time, Tsaplienko predicted that the Russian authorities would be quick to “correct” the court’s mistake.
Indeed, later the same day Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov said there had been a mistake made by those who filed the court document.
“It’s impossible, (as) there are no Russian military present in the self-proclaimed republics (of the Donbas), and there never have been,” Peskov told Russian state TASS news agency on Dec. 16 when asked about the court document.
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