Here's a new feature by RFE/RL's Carl Schreck and Dmitry Volchek:
Russian 'Former Fascist' Who Fought With Separatists Says Moscow Unleashed, Orchestrated Ukraine War
In early March 2014, veteran Russian ultranationalist Anton Rayevsky stood near a demonstration in St. Petersburg against Moscow's forceful annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula that was under way at the time. He held a placard that read: "Russians support sending Russian troops to Ukraine."
"I will fight. I'm not scared," the self-described former "fascist," who has a partially erased Adolf Hitler tattoo on his left arm, told a journalist who asked him about his one-man protest.
In the months that followed, Rayevsky made good on this vow. He and a group of fellow nationalists joined Russia-backed separatists to fight Kyiv's forces in a war that has since killed more than 9,100 people in eastern Ukraine.
And while says he never saw the regular Russian troops he had called for during his picket in St. Petersburg, it was crystal-clear to Rayevsky that the Russian military was orchestrating the separatist forces -- and arming them.
"I can say with absolute certainty that all of the mid- and high-level commanders -- from the battalion to the brigades -- were Russian advisers. All of the military equipment we had, all of the weapons: It was all from Russia," Rayevsky, 30, told RFE/RL's Russian Service in a recent interview.
Rayevsky's specific claims about his time fighting with separatists in eastern Ukraine could not be independently verified. But they are consistent with a broad array of evidence of the Russian military's direct involvement in the conflict. Kyiv, the United States, the European Union, and NATO have accused the Kremlin of providing weapons, personnel, training, and cash to the separatists since the war erupted in eastern Ukraine in April 2014.
Moscow has repeatedly rejected the allegations, often claiming that only Russian "volunteers" -- among them Russian soldiers purportedly on leave – have fought against the Ukrainian military. In December, President Vladimir Putin suggested that there were Russian military personnel carrying out orders in Ukraine -- but still insisted there were no "regular Russian troops" there. The Kremlin later walked back his remarks, saying Putin was referring to volunteers.
Evidence against Putin's claim includes accounts by soldiers to media, funerals for Russian servicemen in their hometowns, and indications of involvement by regular Russian troops at key points in the conflict such as the summer of 2014 and the fighting for Debaltseve early in 2015.
Rayevsky, who says he now regrets that he took up arms in the war, disputes the Kremlin's version of the status of Russian combatants in the conflict.
"Active Russian [military] advisers, trainers, Russian military equipment -- all of that is there," he says. "With regards to actual soldiers, I didn't see them. I think they are limited groups that are deployed in [the southern Russian city of] Rostov-on-Don and ready to move to any hot spot when called upon."
Read the entire article here
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WATCH: Protesters Demand Savchenko's Release
Savchenko Trial Due To Resume In Russian Court
The trial of Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko is due to resume on March 9 at a military court in Russia.
Savchenko says she was seized in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 while fighting with a volunteer battalion against Russia-backed separatists and taken to Russia illegally.
She is now on trial, accused of acting as a spotter who called in coordinates for a mortar attack that killed two Russian journalists.
"During the past 20 months, she has become a symbol of Ukrainian national pride and strength," U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement on March 8.
Biden said Savchenko has been "unjustly imprisoned" and the United States is calling on Russia "to make the right choice -- to drop all charges and release her at once."
On March 8, several hundred people marched to the Russian Embassy in Kyiv to demand Russia free Savchenko. Savchenko declared a hunger strike, refusing even liquids, on March 3 after the judge adjourned the trial for a week without allowing her to give her final statement.
Prosecutors have asked for Savchenko to be found guilty and sentenced to 23 years in prison.