DONETSK, October 3. /TASS/. Police in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have opened a criminal case into murder of two or more people after mass graves were discovered late last month in the village of Kommunar, a local police spokesman said on Friday.

“At the moment, two out of four bodies have been identified, and an investigation is ongoing,” said the spokesman for a police department in the Makiivka city, in eastern Ukraine.

The prosecutors in the self-proclaimed republic said that the investigation is being conducted in the framework of the criminal law of DPR, similar to that of Russia. “Our penal code is almost absolutely based on the Russian criminal law, correspondingly, the article under which the criminal case has been opened, is the same,” the DPR supervisory agency said.

Mass graves with bodies bearing signs of violent death were discovered on September 23 by self-defense militias on the site of a mine some 35km north-east of Donetsk.

Forensic experts came to the conclusion that the people had been shot in the head at close range.

This area was earlier controlled by Ukrainian security forces and the National Guard’s Aidar battalion. Other burial sites have been also found in the area, but they have not been opened.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry believes the mass burial of civilians near Donetsk is a military crime that could have been committed by Ukraine’s National Guard, and insists on an urgent and comprehensive international probe into the case.