THE HAGUE, April 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda began a preliminary investigation of crimes committed at riots in Ukraine from November 2013 until February 2014, the court said on Friday.

This probe aims to find whether current situation meets criteria required to begin a full-fledged investigation, the court noted.

Developments in Ukraine’s southeast

Protests against the new self-proclaimed Ukrainian authorities, who came to power as a result of a coup in February, erupted in early April in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern territories, in particular, in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, with demonstrators demanding referendums on the country’s federalization.

Last week Ukrainian parliament-appointed Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov announced the start of an antiterrorism operation in the Donetsk region in an apparent effort to put an end to protests of federalization supporters.

The events came after the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russians, reunified with Russia on March 18 following a referendum two days earlier in which an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.