MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/. Russia's Investigative Committee has opened 6,500 criminal cases on crimes of the Ukrainian military against civilians in Donbass since 2014, Alexander Bastrykin, the agency's head, said in an interview with TASS.
"Since 2014, the Investigative Committee of Russia has opened 6,500 criminal cases on crimes against peace and security of humanity, as well as against individuals and property," he said. Most of the criminal cases are being investigated based on the facts of Ukraine's shelling of the civilian population and civilian objects, but facts of other crimes have also been established. Russian investigators held 918 people criminally liable, including representatives of the high command of the Ukrainian army and commanders of military units that carried out shelling of civilians.
More than 5,000 criminal cases against members of the armed forces of Ukraine, which is 80% of the total number, have been opened by investigative bodies since February 2022.
To establish the circumstances of the Ukrainian troops' crimes, investigators have to conduct thousands of investigative actions, in particular, communicate with witnesses and victims, interrogate defendants in criminal cases and conduct complex expert examinations, Bastrykin noted. "Examination of scenes after the Ukrainian shelling not only require good expert knowledge, but also pose a risk to life," Bastrykin added. In total, investigators and criminalists have already inspected about 100,000 destroyed civilian infrastructure objects, and experts of Russia's Investigative Committee's center of forensic medical expertise are establishing the total amount of damage.