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Criminal Cases Initiated on Facts of Injury and Death of Civilians and Numerous Instances of Destruction in Donbas

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation continues to identify Ukrainian officials involved in the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare against the civilian population of Donbass.

According to the investigators, on 20.02.2022, servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out massive shelling with heavy weapons and grenade launchers in several settlements of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Thus, as a result of the night artillery shelling of the area near the Skochinsky mine in Donetsk, a 67-year-old civilian was wounded by shrapnel. In addition, about 5 o'clock in the morning, two civilians were killed and five residential buildings were destroyed as a result of a massive artillery attack on the settlement of Pionerskoye in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic.

By shelling the settlements and civil infrastructure facilities, the Ukrainian servicemen intended to commit murder or cause severe bodily harm to an unlimited number of civilians residing in the south-east of Ukraine and not participating in the armed conflict. The Ukrainian armed forces violated the Protocol on the Cessation of the Use of Weapons in southeastern Ukraine and the Memorandum thereto, as well as the provisions of the Convention Relative to Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and Additional Protocol II thereto.

Two criminal cases have been initiated on a possible crime under Part 1 of Article 356 of the Criminal Code (use of means and methods prohibited by an international treaty of the Russian Federation in an armed conflict).