Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told NBC News Monday that international rules of war wouldn’t apply to two Americans that Russian forces captured in Ukraine. He wouldn’t rule out execution for the vets.
Russians have reportedly tried and will execute captured British troops.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement to Axios and other outlets calling on the Kremlin “as well as its proxies” to “live up to their international obligations in their treatment of any individual, including those captured fighting in Ukraine.”
Geneva Conventions protections include ensuring “prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated”, Axios reports.
THE CAPTURED AMERICAN SOLDIERS
“It depends on the investigation,” Dmitry Peskov told NBC News senior international correspondent Keir Simmons when he was asked whether Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh would “face the same fate” as two British citizens and a Moroccan who were sentenced to death by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine this month.
The families of Drueke, 39, and Huynh, 27, reported them missing last week. Peskov said Drueke and Huynh were “involved in illegal activities” in Ukraine, firing on Russian troops.
“Those guys on the battlefield were firing at our military guys. They were endangering their lives,” he said. “There will be a court, and there will be a court decision,” Peskov said. “They should be punished,” he added, calling Drueke and Huynh “soldiers of fortune”, says NBC.
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Americans Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Huynh, 27, went missing this month while fighting near Kharkiv. Russian state media later showed video interviews with the pair, saying they had been captured by Russian-backed forces.
Citing an unidentified source, the Interfax news agency reported that the men were in the separatist self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine.
BRITS SENTENCED TO DEATH
Britons Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin and Moroccan citizen Brahim Saadoun were sentenced to death by a DPR court this month, after they were captured fighting with the Ukrainian army.
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