Russia Denies U.S.-Style Rendition of Ukrainian Pilot Vet

Russia denied snatching a Ukrainian female pilot to put her on trial, insisting it doesn’t follow the U.S. practice of rendition of prisoners after the government in Kiev said she was taken across the border illegally.

“This is completely different from the extra-territorial methods used by the U.S. in pursuing foreign citizens and whisking them away, as happened recently with Roman Seleznev, under U.S. law,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters in Moscow today.

Seleznev, the son of a Russian lawmaker, was forced by U.S. agents aboard a plane operated by a private company in the Maldives on July 5 and flown to the U.S territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean, according to Russian authorities. He was ordered detained two days ago at a federal court in Guam on charges of selling credit card information he allegedly stole by hacking into the computers of U.S. retailers.

Russia’s detainment of Nadiya Savchenko, an officer in the Ukrainian army who served in Iraq and was captured by pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine last month, is “clear proof of a liaison between terrorists in Ukraine and the Russian authorities,” Andriy Parubiy, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, told reporters yesterday in Washington over a video link from Kiev.

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