Lawyers treat refusal of Kuban "Rosgvardiya" fighters to take part in special operation in Ukraine as justified

A lawsuit filed by 12 employees of the "Rosgvardiya" (Russian National Guard) from the Krasnodar Territory (also known as Kuban by the name of the main river), who were fired after refusal to go to the special operation in Ukraine, was submitted to the court, Mikhail Benyash, an advocate, has informed. The "Rosgvardiya" was created for domestic activities; and the fighters' contracts cannot assume crossing the border of another country without documents, experts have pointed out.

On February 25, Police Captain Farid Chitav, a platoon commander of the OMON (riot police) company of the "Rosgvardiya" in the Krasnodar Territory, and 11 fighters from his company refused to obey the order of the detachment commander to cross the Russian border and proceed to the territory of Ukraine.

According to Pavel Chikov, a lawyer and the head of the "Agora" human rights association, the "Rosgvardiya" fighters explained their refusal to fulfil the order treating it as illegal. "None of them had foreign passports with them, and no intention to leave the territory of Russia; and their official duties were limited to the territory of the Russian Federation," Pavel Chikov wrote in his Telegram channel, reminding that illegal border crossing is a criminal offense under Russian laws.

Mikhail Benyash, an advocate, has noted that the refusal to go to the special operation in Ukraine is not treated as the fighters' political statement, but only as an unwillingness to take part in the special operation and be fired.

The law on the "Rosgvardiya" says nothing directly about any possibility of using the units of this power structure outside Russia, Timofei Shirokov, an advocate, has stated. However, the law "describes the missions of the 'Rosgvardiya' very vaguely."