MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax) - Moscow is making every effort to clarify the situation surrounding Russian citizens detained in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.
"These citizens of Russia have been captured. The Russian side is making every effort to secure their release from captivity and to clarify what has happened to them," he said.
Peskov, however, declined to comment on an online video in which these two Russian citizens detained in Ukraine allegedly confess to being in the Russian army.
"I have nothing more to add," Peskov said.
Maria Zakharova, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's information and press department, said earlier that the Russian Embassy in Kyiv had been unable to obtain permission for consular officials to visit Russian citizens Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Aleksandrov detained in Luhansk for over three days.
"Since receiving the information on the Russians' detention, the Russian embassy has been taking not just necessary, but all possible measures to get consular access to them. Unfortunately, we have been denied such access for over three days now," Zakharova said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
She denied media reports that Russia had allegedly abandoned its two citizens detained in Ukraine.
Two citizens of Russia, who the Ukrainian Security Service believes are "officers from the Main Investigation Department of the Russian Defense Ministry," were detained in the military operation zone near Shchastya on May 16. One of the detainees was wounded in the hand and the other was wounded in the leg.
On May 19, Ukrainian investigators notified Yerofeyev and Aleksandrov that they were suspected of committing crimes covered by Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 258.3, based on involvement in terrorist activities of the so-called LPR (Luhansk People's Republic).
The Russian Defense Ministry said on May 18 that Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev, captured in the Luhansk region on May 18, "had not been active servicemen of the Russian armed forces as of the moment of their detention on May 17."