A source in the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Russian military men, who had been detained by the Ukrainian side, crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border by accident.
"The military men did participate in the operation to patrol the section of the Russian-Ukrainian border, and they crossed it, probably, by accident, on an unmarked part of the border. They showed no resistance to the armed forces of Ukraine during the arrest, as far as we know," Interfax quoted a source in the Russian Defense Ministry as saying.
The source said that armed groups of Ukrainian servicemen, up to 500 people, have repeatedly crossed the Russian border before.
"We did not make any unnecessary hype about it. We simply returned them to the Ukrainian territory," an official said.
Earlier, Ukraine's Security Bureau reported that ten Russian military men of the 98th division of Airborne Troops of the Russian Federation were detained on the territory of the Donetsk region of Ukraine. The troopers had weapons and documents with them.