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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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02Oct14
Russian Investigative Committee opens criminal case against Ukrainian military leaders
The Russian Investigative Committee (IC) has opened a criminal case against the Ukrainian defense minister, chief of staff and other Ukrainian senior military officials, IC spokesman Vladimir Markin told TASS.
The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against Defense Minister Valery Heletey, Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' General Staff Viktor Muzhenko, Commander of Brigade 25 Oleh Mikas, other commanders not identified yet from Brigade 93 and other senior military officials on charges of organizing murders, use of prohibited warfare means and methods and genocide, Markin said.
Heletey, Muzhenko, Mikas and commanders of Brigade 93, who were in command of forces in military operations near the airport in Donetsk from July 3 to September 5, intentionally, in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) and other international laws against genocide, gave orders aimed at complete elimination of the national group of Russian-speaking people living in the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics, Markin said.
Obeying the orders, Ukrainian forces, when shelling the cities of Donetsk, Luhansk, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and other populated localities, used Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers, uncontrolled aircraft-launched missiles with cluster warheads, tactical Tochka-U missiles and other kinds of heavy offensive weaponry with indiscriminate effect, he said.
"As a result, more than 3,000 civilians were killed, more than 5,000 local residents were injured and more than 500 houses and life-support facilities, hospitals and schools were completely or partly destroyed or burned up," Markin said.
More than 300,000 people fearing for their lives and health had to leave their homes and flee from the regions to Russia, Markin said.
Alexander Drymanov, the acting head of the Investigative Committee department for crimes related to the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare said Thursday the suspects would be charged and put on an international wanted list.
[Source: Itar Tass, Moscow, 02Oct14]
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