French gendarmes have arrived in Lviv, in western Ukraine, to assist their Ukrainian counterparts “in the investigations of war crimes committed around kyiv”, the French ambassador to Ukraine announced on Monday.
It is the “first” foreign unit “to provide such aid”, said Étienne de Poncins on Twitter.
“Proud to welcome to Lviv the detachment of technical and scientific gendarmes who have come to assist their comrades in the investigations of war crimes committed around kyiv,” he wrote. “They will be at work tomorrow. »
Images of twenty corpses in civilian clothes in a street, one of them with his hands tied behind his back in Boutcha, in the northwest of kyiv, have gone around the world, the Ukrainian authorities denouncing a “crime of war” of the Russian army. The Kremlin, for its part, assures us that it is a “staging” orchestrated by the Ukrainians and intended to harm it.
” Technical team “
“Solidarity,” said the French ambassador, M. de Poncins, adding the emoticons of the French and Ukrainian flags. His tweet was also translated into Ukrainian.
“A technical team from the Ministry of the Interior responsible for providing its expertise in terms of identification and collection of evidence to the Ukrainian authorities arrived in Ukraine this morning”, affirmed for their part in a joint press release the French ministries of Interior, Justice and Foreign Affairs.
“In agreement with the Ukrainian authorities, it may also contribute to the investigation of the International Criminal Court”, it is written there.
Étienne de Poncins, for his part, accompanied his message with a photo showing about fifteen gendarmes, including a woman, in blue uniforms, posing in front of a white truck from the Criminal Investigation Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN), on which is inscribed “Mobile DNA Laboratory”.
These gendarmes are “crime scene and victim identification experts”, said the press release from the French ministries. Two forensic pathologists also accompany this team which “will be able to set up a chain of examination and identification of bodies”.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reacted by considering that one should “not count on an impartial investigation” by the French gendarmes because of the “bias of these ‘specialists'”.
The Russian ministry even said that it suspected the gendarmes of having the mission of “concealing the numerous war crimes” committed according to Moscow by the Ukrainian forces and of “fabricating accusations against the Russian forces”.
On Sunday, Ukrainian justice said that 1,222 people had been killed in the kyiv region since the start of the invasion, without specifying whether they were only civilians.
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France was “gathering evidence” against “Russian war crimes” in Ukraine.
He then announced the dispatch of French gendarmes and magistrates to the country.