MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. International organizations, first of all the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and UN human rights structures should take more responsibility for completing the investigations of crimes committed in Ukraine, Russia’s envoy to the OSCE Andrey Kelin said Thursday.

Speaking in Vienna at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council, Kelin mentioned the “snipers case” (when snipers were shooting at protesters and police in Kiev during riots in February), the Odessa and Mariupol tragedies, discovery of mass graves, murders of journalists and the Malaysian Boeing crash, saying all crimes should be thoroughly looked into.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in early October that Moscow insists that all crimes in Ukraine be investigated in an unbiased manner.

“International organizations, in particular, the OSCE, should not just watch what is being done but take the responsibility for investigation of the crimes,” Lavrov said then.

Odessa, Mariupol

The southern Ukrainian city of Odessa saw riots on May 2, during which radicals set ablaze the Trade Unions House, where their opponents - federalization supporters - hid, and a tent camp where activists were collecting signatures for a referendum on Ukraine’s federalization and for the status of a state language for Russian.

At least 48 people died and 247 were injured in clashes and the fire in the Trade Unions House. Another 48 people were listed as missing. Some Ukrainian politicians asserted that the death toll reached 116 but that the Kiev authorities concealed the facts.

In Mariupol in the Donetsk Region, Ukrainian law enforcers opened fire from armored vehicles on participants of a rally held in honor of Victory Day on May 9 who gathered near the building of the local Interior Ministry department and who were trying to prevent its storm. Nine people died and 42 were injured.

Kelin speaks of Ukrainian radicals

Kelin said the actions of radicals in Ukraine should be condemned by the international community, including by the OSCE. He said events in Ukraine show that connivance to aggressive radical groups guided by principles of neo-Nazism could lead to even more tragic consequences.

Boeing

On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 passenger airliner on flight MH17 from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur crashed in the Donetsk Region in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Mass graves

Southeastern militias recently found a few mass graves at sites where Ukrainian troops had been stationed. It was reported on September 23 that militiamen found unidentified burial sites in the vicinity of the villages of Kommunar and Nizhnyaya Krynka in the Donetsk Region. After examination of one of the graves, forensic experts concluded that people buried there had been killed by shots to the head at close range.

Ceasefire

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict - Kiev and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics in Ukraine’s east - agreed on a ceasefire during OSCE-mediated talks on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a settlement plan. The ceasefire took effect the same day.