Dead Latvian radical was jailbird in Russia

The citizen of Latvia who was reported to have been killed while fighting for Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine is likely to have made the contacts which led him to join the fight there while serving time in Russian prison years ago, reported Olga Dragileva of Latvian Public Television (LTV) investigative news program De Facto Sunday.

LSM - Rodions Kušnirs was a Latvian citizen who was arrested in Russia for drug trafficking in 2009. He spent more than a year in prison in the town of Sebezh just across the border from Zilupe, Latvia. It was possibly in the Sebezh jail, suggests De Facto, that Kušnir made the necessary contacts that allowed him to later find the shortest and quickest route to the war-torn eastern provinces of Ukraine.

On January 23 unconfirmed reports on social media indicated that Rodion Kušnir had been killed by a bullet at the battle for Donetsk airport. He had been posting photos on his own social networking profiles from the field in Donetsk, some of which were obtained by De Facto.

Piecing together information from various unrelated sources, De Facto has determined that it was Russia through which Kušnir managed to pass over into eastern Ukraine. An acquaintance of his named Jekaterina told De Facto “it was April or May when he said he was working his final days at the plant and that he would be going to Russia for a job.”

Another acquaintance, Vladimir, recalled: “Rodion told me he’d earn way more in Moscow than here. I tried to find out what kind of work he was getting, but he avoided answering.” Kušnir told some of his friends he was going to work “for a brother.”

However, to obtain the required visa, he needed to enlist the help of an unnamed Latvian member of parliament, according to Vladimir. “He said someone would help him quickly get the visa, some deputy, but he didn’t say who.”

The only corroborated link between Kušnir and Latvia’s extremist political scene is the radical movement called Russkaja zarja. Shortly before his departure Kušnir joined a Facebook discussion group to chat with leaders Illarion Girs and Jevgēnij Osipov, both of whom he later met in person.

As reported, authorities are anticipating lawmakers’ efforts to more clearly define the concept of “foreign fighter” in order to help legal systems of the EU member states fight against terrorism.  

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