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A Criminal Case Has Been Initiated on the Fact of Hostages Held by Ukrainian Militants in a Maternity Hospital in the City of Mariupol
In March 2022, persons from among the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and volunteer nationalist battalions, acting deliberately, while in the city of Mariupol, carried out targeted shelling of the maternity hospital building located at 36, Pashkovskogo Street and the adjacent territory. Subsequently, having placed equipment and heavy weapons, they seized and forcibly kept at least 100 civilians inside the building, including pregnant women and at least 40 children, driving them into the basement and using them as hostages and human shields. On this fact, the Main Investigative Department of the IC of Russia has initiated a criminal case on the grounds of a crime under Paragraphs a, c, d, e, f, g, Part 2, Article 206 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (seizure of two or more hostages committed by a group of persons by prior agreement with the use of violence dangerous to life or health).
As part of the investigation of this criminal case, the Chairman of the IC of Russia has instructed investigators to record the testimony of a woman who was kept in a maternity hospital captured by the Ukrainian military in Mariupol. In open sources, the woman reported that the Ukrainian military had used the maternity hospital for their own purposes, and also taken away food from women in labor, holding them virtually hostage. In addition, the woman spoke about the shelling of the building.
Alexander Ivanovich Bastrykin has instructed the investigators to take comprehensive measures to identify all the persons involved in the crimes, with a view to subsequently bringing them to criminal responsibility.