Russian Investigative Committee opens 3 criminal cases into attacks in Donbas
MOSCOW. Feb 27 (Interfax) - Russia has opened another three criminal cases in relation to Donbas civilian casualties suffered this winter in Ukrainian army attacks, Russian Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said.
"New facts of the Ukrainian army's artillery attacks on populated localities in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, which caused civilian casualties, have been established," Petrenko told reporters on Monday.
According to detectives, the Ukrainian military fired artillery weapons of at least 122mm caliber on the towns of Stakhanov and Kirovsk in the Luhansk region on January 14 and 24. Two civilians died as a result.
"It has also been established that, in the period from February 16 till 26, servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and National Guard fulfilled criminal orders of their superiors and fired heavy artillery weapons on civilian infrastructures in the cities of Yasynuvata and Dokuchayivsk and the Novoazovsk district of the Donetsk region, inflicting injuries on three civilians," Petrenko said.
More than 20 apartment buildings and other civilian facilities, such as the Donetsk water filtering station, which supplies drinking water to several populated localities with a thousands-strong population, have been either destroyed or damaged, she said.
"Criminal cases were opened following those events under Part 1 Article 356 of the Russian Criminal Code (the use of prohibited methods and means of warfare)," she said.
The Russian Investigative Committee has been holding an inquiry into these crimes on the basis of international law and Russian laws which allow for criminal prosecution of foreign citizens who commit crimes outside Russia in case they have not been prosecuted.
The Russian Investigative Committee said earlier it had opened a number of criminal cases against senior Ukrainian servicemen, who, according to Russian detectives, were involved in the artillery attacks in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.