Another 5 Ukrainian servicemen charged with committing war crimes in Donbas - Russian Investigative Committee
MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) - The Russian Investigative Committee has brought war crime accusations against another five senior Ukrainian army officers, Russian Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said.
"The department investigating the use of forbidden methods and means of warfare, the Russian Investigative Committee's Main Investigative Department, has established hitherto unknown facts of the Ukrainian army's artillery attacks on the civilian population of the Donetsk People's Republic," Petrenko told Interfax on Monday.
The case was opened against commander of the 53rd separate mechanized brigade Col. Oleksandr Gruzevych, commander of the 58th separate motorized infantry brigade Lt. Col. Mykhailo Drapaty, commander of the 128th separate mountain infantry brigade Col. Serhiy Shaptala, commander of the 40th separate artillery brigade Col. Serhiy Panchenko, and commander of the 56th separate mechanized brigade Col. Serhiy Perets, she said.
In the period from September till November 2016, the officers "fulfilled the knowingly criminal orders of senior officials from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and fired for effect heavy artillery weapons on civilian infrastructures, which were not designated as military targets, in populated localities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic," she said, referring to investigators.
"Those attacks took two lives and inflicted various injuries on more than 20 persons, while more than 100 residential buildings and other facilities were destroyed or damaged. It has also been established that, on June 25, 2016, commander of the 36th separate marine brigade of the Ukrainian Navy Col. Dmytro Delyatitsky and his subordinates fired heavy weapons on the town of Kominternove in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. They damaged a power transmission line, and two minors were killed by electric shock," Petrenko said.
A ceasefire regime imposed by the Trilateral Contact Group was in effect when those attacks were conducted, and that regime was repeatedly breached by the Ukrainian side, she said.
"Detectives have opened criminal cases against the aforesaid commanders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces under Part 1, Article 356 of the Russian Penal Code (the use of forbidden means and methods of warfare)," the spokesperson said.
In addition, charges have been brought in absentia against commander of the 54th separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Lt. Col. Volodymyr Horbatyuk, who organized and led a precision artillery attack on the Petrovskyi district of Donetsk, during which a local woman was hit by shrapnel.
"The Investigative Committee is probing the aforesaid crimes, being guided by norms of international and Russian law, which allow criminal prosecution of foreign citizens who commit crimes outside our country in case they are not punished. What is more, there is no statute of limitation for such crimes," the spokesperson said.
