The Kremlin denies the connection between the decree classyfuing peacetime military death with the events in the war-torn Donbas.
The law has no connection to events in Ukraine, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told a conference call later on Thursday. According to him, the changes are part of efforts to improve legislation on state secrets.
“In this case, according to the relevant agencies, such (level of) secrecy shows the best correlation with the state interest,” Peskov stressed.
The amendment does not mean that Vladimir Putin is going to sanction any special military operations, Peskov added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree classifying information on the deaths of military servicemen ‘during peacetime when carrying out special operations’ on May 28. Before this, only military deaths during wartime were classified as a state secret.
Russia denies U.S. and European Union accusations that it is sending troops and weapons to eastern Ukraine to support separatists in a more than yearlong conflict that has claimed more than 6,100 lives. At least 220 Russian soldiers have been killed in the fighting and as many as 10,000 may be in Ukraine, according to a report published on May 12 by opposition activists in Moscow.
