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Verkhovna Rada registers draft resolution on air strike probe in east Ukraine's Luhansk

At least seven civilians were killed and dozens others wounded in a shelling of the Luhansk regional administrative building on June 2

KIEV, June 04. /ITAR-TASS/. Oleksandr Yefremov, leader of the Party of Regions faction in the Verkhovna Rada, suggests to recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to probe a military crime in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, where a Ukrainian warplane had delivered a missile strike on the regional administrative building in the center of the city on June 2. The draft resolution to this effect was registered in parliament on Wednesday.

Yefremov stated earlier that at least seven civilians were killed and dozens others wounded in a shelling of the Luhansk regional administrative building on June 2. “We have drafted a parliamentary resolution for investigation of a crime against civilians on June 2 in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. We ask parliament to support this resolution to probe a crime of state authorities against their own civilians,” Yefremov said.

 

Air strike at Luhansk regional administrative building

A Ukrainian fighter plane delivered a missile strike on the Luhansk regional administrative building in the very center of the city, probably by cluster bombs, the press service of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic said on Monday. The press service noted that eight civilians were killed in the air strike. Another 28 people received heavy injuries and were hospitalized. Luhansk republican Health Minister Natalia Arkhipova is on the list of fatalities.

On June 3, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) issued a report saying that Luhansk regional administrative building came under a missile strike from the warplane.

Militiamen have launched a missile from a portable air defense missile system, hitting the Luhansk regional administrative building on June 2, Ukrainian First Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Golomsha said. Representative of Ukrainian Armed Forces Alexei Dmitrashkovsky claimed that the explosion had allegedly gone off inside the building, but there was no shelling from the outside. “The most probable reason for the blast was careless and unskilled handling of firearms and explosives,” he believes.