The Holosiyivsky District Court of Kyiv has decided to forward the files of the criminal inquiry opened against Russian citizens Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov to the Kyiv Court of Appeals, which, for its part, will have to send these documents to the Higher Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases in order to determine the place of their trial.

The Holosiyivsky Court made this decision on Tuesday after considering a petition from the Russians' defense team claiming territorial jurisdiction violations in this case.

Yerofeyev's lawyer Oksana Sokolovskaya and Alexandrov's lawyer Konstantin Kravchuk said earlier that their clients should go on trial at the Novoaidar court because the events in which these Russian citizens are accused of being involved took place in this area.

The state prosecutor, however, said that the Novoaidar court would be unable to hear this case due to the complicated security situation in the region.

Alexandrov and Yerofeyev were detained by the Ukrainian intelligence service on May 16, 2015, in the military operation zone in the area of the town of Schastia in the Luhansk region. One of them was wounded in the hand, the other one in the leg.

Ukraine described Yerofeyev and Alexandrov as Russian soldiers. In response to that the Russian defense ministry informed that Yerofeyev and Alexandrov were Russian citizens but not actual military servicemen of the Russian armed forces at the point of their detention.

A court in Kyiv ruled on the arrest of the two Russians.