Groups representing Russian military veterans plan to ask the International Criminal Court to investigate Russia's deployment of civilian contractors secretly in Syria, Ukraine and Africa, the leader of a Russian paramilitary group said.
The recruitment of civilians to fight abroad is illegal in Russia, and the Kremlin has repeatedly denied reports of the participation of thousands of Russian contractors in the fighting alongside government forces in Syria.
People familiar with the mission in Syria said more than 100 Russian civilians were killed during the campaign, but the ICC has no jurisdiction over Syria and has never dealt with any similar cases before.
Yevgeny Shabayev, commander of the Cossack paramilitary group, said that nearly 12 Russian veterans' organizations were planning to send Fatu Bensuda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague, to investigate war crimes, Reuters reported.
He personally identified dozens of people who had participated in such missions.
The size of the organizations is unclear, and may not represent a large majority of veterans, who have in Russia hundreds of thousands after their intervention in Afghanistan and the conflict in Chechnya.
"The Russians are fighting abroad as volunteers without official recognition from the Russian government," said Shabayev, who once served as the representative of one of Russia's pro-Russian separatist republics in eastern Ukraine.
Veterans in the letter explain that they are dissatisfied with the fact that private contractors are working illegally and have no social benefits or protection thereafter.
"In fact, Russian civilians are being sent out of their country of residence to use them illegally for military purposes," they added.
