In response to a question about the desecration of cultural monuments and graves with the participation of illegal armed groups in Artsakh, the citizenship of the members of those groups, Maria Zakharova said during the briefing.
"We need to have videos and photos of examples of vandalism in order to be able to clearly identify the location and authenticity. As for the citizenship of the mercenaries, you should ask that question to the countries where they come from. Russia has nothing to do with them. Speaking to the media on November 17, the President Vladimir Putin referred to those transferred by Turkey to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone as "illegal armed groups". That is, we are talking about groups whose status and activities do not comply with the requirements of international law.
In terms of giving a legal assessment of the situation, I can emphasize that the provisions of Protocol No. 1 to the 1977 Geneva Convention, which concern the protection of victims of armed conflicts, apply to this conflict. In the context of this conflict, the transferred militants are considered mercenaries because they were recruited in another country to engage in armed conflict in a third country, in fact took part in armed operations, for which they received a high salary.
Based on the information available from open sources, we also know the amount of that salary - up to $ 2,000 per month. These people are not citizens of any party to the conflict, have not been members of the armed forces of any of the parties to the conflict, have not lived in areas under the control of the parties to the conflict, have not been sent by the third countries as official representatives of their armed forces", Said Zakharova.
According to her, since the mercenaries can not be considered legal participants in the armed conflict, the Russian president called them "illegal armed groups".
