Interfax: National Guard refutes claims of executing 10 servicemen for refusing to participate in counterterrorist effort

DONETSK/KYIV. May 18 (Interfax) – The self-defense force in Donetsk region claims that a Ukrainian National Guard unit deployed in Kramatorsk executed 10 servicemen for refusing to participate in the military operation in the region. The press service of the National Guard refutes the claims.

“In Kramatorsk National Guards shot dead ten of their colleagues, conscripts who said they did not want to fight against their countrymen any longer but would go home,” a spokesman for the HQ of the self-defense force told Interfax. He claimed that the execution had taken place in the grounds of an army unit.

“The guys were lined up right in the territory of the unit and shot down,” he claimed. “Now their bodies are being buried in the outskirts of Kramatorsk,” he said.

Meanwhile, the National Guard has denied the reports as misinformation.

“That is not true, of course. Nobody executed anyone,” Interfax was told at the press service of the National Guard on Sunday.

A press officer reminded Interfax that on May 16 because of the treachery of contract servicemen who had defected to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic the Eastern command of the National Guard had to redeploy personnel with arms and machinery. The prosecutor’s office for law enforcement in the military sphere launched criminal proceedings in relation to thi s fact.