Hard to establish scope of extrajudicial executions in eastern Ukraine - Amnesty International
KYIV. Oct 20 (Interfax) - Amnesty International said executions and other premeditated murders in eastern Ukraine were typical of both the militias and the Ukrainian military.
"There is no doubt that extrajudicial executions and other atrocities are committed by both pro-Russian separatists and by the pro-Kyiv forces in eastern Ukraine. But it is difficult to get reliable information about the actual scope of the abuses," Amnesty International Director for Ukraine Tatiana Mazur said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
"Many of these abuses may have not been uncovered yet, while others are being deliberately falsified. It is also clear that some of the most shocking instances covered in the press, including in the Russian media, were overly exaggerated," Mazur said while presenting a report on extrajudicial executions during the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
What the Russian media described as "mass graves" in Nyzhnya Krynka was indeed a horrible sight to look at, she said. "All evidence gathered indicates that four local residents were executed in an extrajudicial manner either by the Ukrainian regular forces, or by volunteer battalions active in the regions," Mazur continued.
"These facts must be thoroughly investigated by authorized services. But this episode demonstrates how claims about abuses are being bloated, especially by Russia, amid an information war," she said.
Amnesty International also cited examples when the militia committed murders of pro-Ukrainian activists and their suspected supporters, local criminals and detained combatants.
However, no convincing proof has been obtained suggesting that mass murders had been committed or bodies were buried in mass graves. "We received information about individual extrajudicial executions some of which are qualified as war crimes," Mazur said.
"An end must be put to these crimes," she said. "All instances arousing justified suspicion must be probed effectively, and those responsible for them on both sides must be brought to justice," she said.
Amnesty International conducted its survey in eastern Ukraine in late August and in late September, interviewing victims of rights abuses, their families, eyewitnesses, local officials in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, medical personnel and combatants on both sides.
