MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened three more criminal cases into the Ukrainian army’s shelling attacks on populated areas in the Donbass region in south-east Ukraine, Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko told TASS on Monday.
"The Department for the investigation of crimes related to the use of banned means and methods of warfare within the Main Investigation Department of Russia’s Investigative Committee has established new facts of artillery attacks by Ukrainian servicemen on the populated areas of the Lugansk and Donetsk Regions, as a result which civilians were killed. Three criminal cases have been opened into these facts on counts of the crime stipulated by part 1, article 356 of Russia’s Criminal Code ("The Use of the Banned Means and Methods of Warfare"), the spokeswoman said.
According to the investigators, on January 14 and 24 this year, the Ukrainian servicemen used artillery guns of a caliber of no less than 122 mm to shell the towns of Stakhanov and Kirovsk in the Lugansk Region, as a result of which two civilians were killed. Serious damage was caused to the building of the Kirov central city multifunctional hospital, which is actually the sole medical institution, which services Kirovsk and the nearby populated areas where thousands of residents live, the spokeswoman said.
Also, on February 16-26, servicemen of the Ukrainian armed forces and the National Guard of Ukraine who were performing criminal orders of the higher command conducted fire from heavy armaments at civil infrastructure facilities of the towns of Yasinovataya and Dokuchayevsk, and also of the Novoazovsk district of the Donetsk Region, as a result of which three civilians were wounded. The artillery fire destroyed or damaged over 20 houses and other civil facilities, including the Donetsk filtration station that supplies potable water to several populated areas with a population of many thousands of people, the Investigative Committee spokeswoman said.
"The investigators are taking all necessary measures to identify the persons complicit in each specific fact of the artillery attacks and register the proofs of the mass violations of human rights and freedoms on the territory of south-east Ukraine," Petrenko said.
Russia’s Investigative Committee is investigating all these crimes pursuant to the norms of both international and Russian law making it possible to hold criminally liable foreign citizens who have committed crimes outside Russia, if they have not been punished for that, Petrenko said.
"The crimes by the Ukrainian servicemen against civilians have no limitation periods. Russian investigators will take all possible measures so that both their executors and those who gave orders get their just deserts sooner or later," the spokeswoman said.