The Russian Defense Ministry has formally confirmed that Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev were not Russian career officers but served the so-called militants of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) under a contract at the moment of their detention, Yuri Grabovsky, the lawyer of Russian citizen Alexandrov, has said.

"We made an inquiry and received all necessary answers. The answer is affirmative. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the service record of those individuals. At the moment of their detention they were not Russian servicemen. They were contract servicemen of the LPR militants," Grabovsky told reporters on Tuesday after the hearing at the Kyiv Holosiyivsky District Court.