Military inspectors detained in Slavyansk consider themselves “guests” of the “people’s mayor”
Slavyansk, April 27 (Navigator, Victoria Litovchenko) – Military inspectors detained in Slavyansk stated during a press conference of the “people's mayor” Vyacheslav Ponomarev that they are not prisoners of war.
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“We detained career officers from the European Union countries,” Ponomarev recalled.
The inspectors assured that they were feeling well, were not injured during the capture and were not prisoners of war.
"I am from Germany. I am a colonel. My name is Axel Schneider. We have been in the hands of the mayor of Slavyansk for several days now. We've had a lot of conversations since we came here. We learned that many people live in poverty, which saddens us. We came here as OSCE observers to carry out a diplomatic mission. And since we arrived here, we have been under the protection of the local mayor and are considered his guests,” the inspector said, as quoted by the Slavyansk publication.
The colonel said that they were all “in good conditions.”
“They didn’t touch us. Nobody gets sick. We are not prisoners of war, we are members of the OSCE mission, we exercise arms control, we did not have intelligence equipment and we have diplomatic status. We don't know when we'll return home. These issues are within the competence of the diplomats of our countries,” he said.
The inspectors also noted that when Vyacheslav Ponomarev invited them to take part in a press conference, they agreed because they wanted the families to see them.
“We are guests of “mayor” Ponomarev. We don’t know when we will be released,” said one of the inspectors.
Let us recall that on April 25, in Slavyansk, a bus carrying military inspectors from the verification mission, which arrived at the invitation of the Ukrainian authorities in accordance with the Vienna Document of 2011, and the Ukrainian military was detained. Vyacheslav Ponomarev does not rule out that they could be exchanged for detained supporters and leaders of the DPR.
Military inspectors detained in Slavyansk consider themselves "guests" of the "people's mayor"