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Immediately after the Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under article 357 of the RF Penal Code related to genocide, the liberal-minded public, in social networks, let alone Ukrainian mass media started making venomous remarks at least doubting not only the general legitimacy of opening the genocide case, but the mere fact of language-based unification of the victims. Well, Russian-speaking people form an ethnic group concentrating in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. This, I think, is absolutely clear to any sensible person, except for of course those who order and execute genocide and those who offer them their moral support through mass media and social networks.

Today’s shelling of Donetsk in the middle of truce, the target of which again was not just civilians, but school students, who came to school for their first lesson this year a month later, yet again confirms the cynicism and hypocrisy of Ukrainian authorities. At least eight people killed today in Donetsk are next victims confirming purposeful annihilation of civilians. Their sole guilt was that they spoke Russian and did not want to join nationalistic hysteria or let fascist ideology in their homeland. Those eight victims were added to a long list of Donetsk regional morgue, which up to now has registered 1,374 bodies of those killed in this massacre. There are over two hundred women and children among those casualties.

The mass graves recently found near Donetsk are yet another eloquent testament to the atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists. All of the victims were tortured before death. For those who still have doubts about who was involved in those murders, the Russia’s Investigative Committee can produce irrefutable evidence of statements made by witnesses and conclusions of analyses directly indicating that the crime was committed by militants of the National Guard and Right Sector. According to a teenager, who under the threats had to tell who had joined the local militias and could support them, those people were tortured and then summarily executed. Moreover, the nature and style of the murders committed by the National Guard and Right Sector are very similar to other crimes described in detail by Dnepr battalion private Sergey Litvinov. I would like to calm those who will try to accuse us that we brought him from other state by force: that person came to Russia on his own accord as a civilian to be taken to a hospital in the Rostov Region. At present Litvinov is arrested and will soon be transported to Moscow for psychological evaluation. So, according to Litvinov he “personally killed civilian people, who did not take part in an armed conflict, including women and children, living in the villages of Melovoye, Shiroky, Makarovo and Kamyshnoye based on as petty a reason as anonymous reports”. Which is more interesting, for those murders the private received fees given to him by his superiors from the funds of Vladimir Kolomoysky.

Now I’m specially addressing to those questioning legality of the investigation launched by the Russia’s Investigative Committee. I have to disappoint all those trying to accuse us of interfering in the affairs of a sovereign republic. We get all the information and evidence from eye-witnesses of those crimes, namely, from refugees who fled conflict areas and found refuge in the Russian Federation. There are over 300 thousand of those. We have questioned over 60 thousand of them, which has no precedents either in Soviet era or post-Soviet time. More than 12 thousand of those 60 thousand people were recognized victims to the crimes. In addition to the statements of the eye-witnesses, many of the victims provided the Russia’s Investigative Committee with proofs and evidence in the form of soil samples and DNA materials. Careful analyses confirmed the words of the witnesses and victims. And now I would like to ask the Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office: what has prevented them and is preventing them now from carrying their own investigation in mass murders of civilians and trying to protect innocent people of Donbass instead of hysterically claiming the alleged “intervention” in the affairs of a sovereign state? It is clear that we won’t get any answer to that, as the civilian population of Donbass forced to leave their homeland to save their lives did not get either, and it is clear why they had to go to Russia for help.

I point out once more that the Russia’s Investigative Committee will not leave unattended not one of such statements made by refugees and we are not going to turn a blind eye to the actions of Ukrainian armed forces, National Guard and Right Sector aimed to kill civilians. Here I would like to note once again that the actions of the Russia’s Investigative Committee fall in line with not only all requirements of Russian laws, but international laws as well. Today we know the names of many commanders of divisions, militants of the Right Sector and National Guard, who execute criminal orders of military and political leadership of Ukraine. The names of those leaders are well known. All of them, those who order and those who execute those orders, will have to answer for that sooner or later both to the law and their conscience.

Head of Media Relations                                                                                                     V.I. Markin