MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. The laws just adopted by the Ukrainian parliament permitting foreign nationals to serve in the country’s armed forces and intelligence service are unconstitutional and indicate Kiev continues to lose sovereignty, Ukrainian politician Vladimir Oleinik, a member of the 5th, 6th and 7th Verkhovna Rada, told TASS on Friday.
He stressed that the Ukrainian Constitution "states quite unambiguously that the country’s protection is a duty of its citizens, but at the same time it says nothing about foreigners."
"Permission to foreign citizens to serve in the armed forces is tantamount to further loss of what is still left of Ukraine’s sovereignty," he said.
These new laws, he warns, are capable of breeding great problems in the future, Oleinik warns.
"In Britain, for instance, there is an unequivocal ban on service in foreign armed forces," he said. "Then the question arises: what if Ukraine has a conflict with some other country - on whose side will foreign military servicemen - citizens of that foreign country - be fighting?"
Oleinik is certain that the new law was passed in order to legalize mercenaries.
Two or three thousand foreigners "are not a critical amount for Ukraine, a country that is capable of mobilizing up to one million; the mercenaries are cut-throats, killers, people without a motherland."
"Kiev has realized that Russia interprets the presence of foreign citizens as mercenaries and, respectively, the Geneva conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners of war do not apply to them."
As for the permission to foreigners to serve in the intelligence, Oleinik believes that this is "an attempt to legalize Kiev’s foreign handlers." He is certain that the Ukrainian secret services and the current regime in Kiev as such are administered directly from London and Washington. He recalled that several years ago, the US flag was hoisted in front of the building of the SBU security service when a senior US official visited Kiev.
"Possibly, the Western handlers, who rule the roost in reality at the Defense Ministry and serve as advisers in the SBU, foreign intelligence and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry intelligence directorate, have demanded a status for themselves. If so, this is clear evidence that Ukraine has turned into a terrorist organization. It is not a state. States do not act like this," Oleinik concluded.
On Thursday, April 14 the Verkhovna Rada passed laws permitting foreign nationals to serve in the Ukrainian intelligence and the Ukrainian army under contract. The duration of such service is three years for privates and three to five years for non-commissioned officers. On February 27, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky declared he had established an International Legion of Territorial Defense. On March 7, the legion’s branch was established under the Defense Ministry’s main intelligence directorate.