The Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office is studying some 5,600 cases of incidents constituting war crimes committed by Russia since the beginning of its invasion of the country, as reported on Sunday by the country's attorney general, Irina Venediktova, in statements to Sky News.
The Public Prosecutor's Office has structured these incidents around one main case, such as the Russian invasion, which places more than 500 senior Russian political and military officials as suspects.
Venediktova has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of becoming the “leading war criminal of the 21st century”, although he has acknowledged that Putin, as long as he remains at the helm of the country, cannot be charged without a decision by the Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Tribunal (ICC).
The European Union's chief diplomatic officer, Josep Borrell, announced a meeting this Sunday with the ICC Prosecutor's Office to “discuss the personalized and comprehensive support of the European Union Mission in Ukraine” in relation to these cases, starting with the massacre of more than 360 civilians in the town of Bucha by the Russian forces, according to the Government of Kiev and its allies.
T he prosecutor also denounced Friday's attack on a train station in the city of Kramatorsk as a war crime, which left at least half a hundred dead and more than a hundred injured.
“These people just wanted to save their lives, they wanted to be evacuated. They were women, they were children and they just wanted to save their lives,” said the prosecutor, who reiterated that Ukraine has “evidence” that Russia was behind the attack. “Almost every region of Ukraine has been bombed and we have a lot of concrete data for each region and every city,” said the prosecutor.
Online Horror Archive
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced Saturday the creation of an online archive to document war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine with evidence, he added, that will help the perpetrators not escape justice.
“We thoroughly document every atrocity, every crime. We have created a special online archive of these crimes so that the world knows the truth and to hold Russians accountable for every drop of Ukrainian blood they shed,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement.
This file “guarantees that the Russians cannot hide the truth about their terrible crimes in Ukraine,” he said.
“We will punish Russian war criminals for the atrocities they are committing in Ukraine, not only the executors, but also the commanders who gave the orders and the entire political-military leadership of the Russian Federation,” he said.
He added that thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, tortured and killed by Russian soldiers, that civilians have been executed with their hands tied behind their backs in the streets of Bucha, and that women and children have been raped and killed.
“War crimes of Russia. Beyond evil, even during the war”, highlights the web during the immersive experience of the page, under the sound of sirens that rumble during the bombings. “Russia ignores the rules. These rules are now being cynically and unscrupulously violated by thousands of Russian soldiers sent to Ukraine by their dictator, Putin. To bomb. To destroy. To commit mass murder,” they add.
They also exhibit photos of destruction of buildings in civilian areas.
“We will never forget or forgive. Neither does the world,” they said.
The Russian army has bombed maternity hospitals, schools, nurseries and humanitarian corridors and that people have been forcibly deported to Russia, he added.
The war crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion on February 24 included in this archive are divided into seven categories: murder of innocents, attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure, destruction of population centers, hostages and torture, deportation illegal, attacks on religion and culture and rape.
The statement adds that the portal “immerses visitors in the horrible atmosphere of this war” to “experience only a fraction of how Ukrainians have been forced to live for more than six weeks”, to “listen to the sounds of anti-aircraft sirens, warplanes and missile strikes” and to “read the terrible testimonies of the survivors”.
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