By Aigerim Turgunbaeva
BISHKEK (Reuters) – Kyrgyz security services have detained four people, including an employee of a Russian government agency, on suspicion of recruiting Kyrgyz citizens to fight in the Russian army, officials said on Wednesday.
Kyrgyzstan’s domestic security agency told Reuters the detainees included an employee of Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian agency for cultural exchange, in Kyrgyzstan’s second city of Osh, as well as an employee of Osh city hall’s press service.
In a statement on Telegram, Rossotrudnichestvo’s Russian House cultural centre in Osh said that its activities were all legal. It said it was “anxious” for the fate of the detained employee, Natalia Serekina, who it said was a citizen of Kyrgyzstan.
The suspects are being held under charges related to recruiting and supporting mercenaries for participation in armed conflicts abroad.
A court in the country’s capital, Bishkek, charged the four suspects with mercenary activity, and placed them in pre-trial detention until June 17.
Hundreds of Central Asian nationals, principally from Kyrgzystan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, are believed to have enlisted in the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
Moscow offers high salaries and Russian citizenship to foreigners who sign up, an offer which has drawn takers from as far afield as Cuba, Nepal and India.
Several of these countries have asked Moscow to stop recruiting their citizens, and send serving soldiers home.
Kyrgyzstan has maintained its traditional alignment with Russia throughout the more than three-year war in Ukraine, even as Kyrgyz authorities have prosecuted citizens for joining the Russian army.
The mountainous and mostly Muslim country of 7 million is heavily economically dependent on Russia, where many of its nationals migrate for work, and hosts several Russian military bases.
(Reporting by Aigerim Turgunbaeva in Bishkek, Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Alison Williams)
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