MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case over the use of prohibited means and methods of war in connection with multiple bombardments of the Donetsk Region by Kiev’s forces and the National Guard, the IC’s acting spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said on Tuesday.
"On February 4-6 Ukrainian troops and national guardsmen carried out multiple artillery bombardments of the Donetsk Region. Dozens of apartment buildings and administrative offices, as well as power supply lines and railway rolling stock were damaged," she said. "The IC’s department for the investigation of crimes involving the use of outlawed means and methods of warfare has opened a criminal case under part one of article 356 of the Criminal Code (The use of outlawed means and methods of war).
In violation of the Minsk Accords and the related ceasefire obligations, Petrenko said, the authorities in Kiev keep building up their military presence along the engagement line by bringing there reinforcements, including units of the 79th separate airborne assault brigade, the Donbass battalions and the Azov regiment.
"Few have doubts about the aims and results of such a military build-up. Since May 2014 the Investigative Committee has more than once reported progress in investigating grave and extremely grave crimes committed by Ukraine’s top political and military leadership in the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions," Petrenko said. "For the past three years civilians in these areas have been subjected to bombardments. Civilians are in the line of fire. Children are being killed and schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities ruined."
Russian investigators have interpreted these actions as particularly grave crimes, as genocide, the use of outlawed means and methods of warfare, extremism, participation of mercenaries in an armed conflict or combat operations and kidnappings.