NEW YORK, December 17. /TASS/. The Kiev authorities are committing genocide against Donbass civilians and should be brought to justice for war crimes, Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett, who is currently visiting the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said on Saturday.
"My colleagues and I document Ukraine’s crimes against Donbas civilians, <…> so that eventually ideally, Ukraine will be held accountable for those manifold war crimes," she said at a video conference organized by the Schiller Institute.
"I hope that we can change the discourse so that it’s no longer whitewashed what Ukraine is doing, and we can speak very openly about the fact that Ukraine is committing genocide," she added.
Bartlett pointed out that she had witnessed multiple times when Donetsk was shelled and when civilians were killed in shelling, and emphasized that the Ukrainian armed forces were pounding the residential areas where there were no military targets.
"This is purely continued Ukrainian terrorism and Ukrainian war crimes," the journalist said.
Citing the statistics of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, she said that "since mid-February, over 4,500 Donbas civilians have been killed by Ukraine’s shelling."
"And of course, we’re not hearing about that in the [Western] media at all," Bartlett said.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a special military operation following a request for help from the leaders of the Donbass republics. In retaliation, the West has slapped sweeping sanctions on Moscow and stepped up weapons supply to Kiev, and the price tag for this military aid is currently estimated at billions of dollars.