The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation continues documenting the facts of illegal activities of Ukrainian military forces in the non-international military conflict in Donbass. Ukrainian servicemen are still refusing to respect the cease-fire arrangements subject to the Protocol to Cease Fire in South-East Ukraine and the related Memorandum.

From September 19 to September 30, 2019, servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted targeted artillery attacks on civilian infrastructure objects of no military target in the Trudovskaya Shaft settlement of Petrovsky District, the Kominternovo settlement of Novoazovsky District, the Zaytsevo settlement of Nikitovsky District, the 6-7 Shafts settlement, and the Mayorsk checkpoint of Nikitovsky District of Gorlovka, the self-appointed Donetsk People’s Republic.

On October 3, Ukrainian security forces fired rocket-propelled grenades at civilian infrastructure facilities in the Staromikhaylovka urban settlement of Kirovsky District, the self-appointed Donetsk People’s Republic.

As a result of these attacks, five civilians not involved in the armed conflict were injured in varying degrees of severity.

The investigation also documented other previously unknown cases of artillery shelling, which resulted in significant damage to the civilian infrastructure of no military target in the settlements of the self-appointed Donetsk and Luhansk People’ Republics. Between March 18 and September 25, 2019, 386 residential buildings and 34 civilian and community facilities were destroyed or partially destroyed in these territories.

Based on said evidence, the Investigative Committee of Russia launched six probes into an offense under Part 1 of Article 356 of the Criminal Code of Russia (cruel treatment of civilians and use in a military conflict of means and methods of warfare, banned by an international treaty of the Russian Federation).

Investigative actions and search activities aimed to establish all circumstances of the said offenses and to identify all military officials involved in their committing are ongoing.

 

Official spokesperson for the Investigative Committee of Russia S. Petrenko