MOSCOW, October 2. /TASS/. The Ukrainian interior ministry’s repudiation of any ties with the arrested Dnepr punitive battalion fighter looks like a trick used by a hirer of a contract killer, Russian Investigations Committee Spokesman Vladimir Markin said on Wednesday.
“A trivial trick used by a killer’s paymaster - to deny any relation to the killer in case of his arrest,” Markin wrote in his Twitter microblog, commenting on the pronouncements of Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, who said that the arrested Dnepr battalion gunman, private Sergei Litvinov, had never served in this battalion.
Earlier on Wednesday, Markin said that the Russian Investigations Committee had brought official charges against Litvinov for murdering civilians during an armed conflict in southeast Ukraine.
“Litvinov has testified that he personally killed peaceful civilians, including women and children who were not linked to the military conflict, in the villages of Melovoye, Shirokiy, Makarovo and Kamyshnoye /in Ukraine’s Lugansk region/ on the basis of information provided by anonymous sources,” Vladimir Markin, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, said, adding Litvinov had received remuneration from oligarch Igor Kolomoisky’s personal funds for committing the murders.
"I would like to calm those who are going to accuse us of bringing the man into Russia from the territory of another state: this man has entered the Russian territory himself disguised as a peaceful civilian in order to be admitted to hospital. At present, Litvinov has been arrested and will be escorted to Moscow soon to undergo a psychological examination,” Markin said.
A psychological examination is a standard procedure required when someone is suspected of committing grave crimes against human life and health.