Ukrainian investigators have identified “more than 8,000 cases” of alleged war crimes since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said Thursday.
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“We now have more than 8,000 cases,” she said in an interview with German media outlet Deutsche Welle.
“It’s actually 8,600 cases that relate to war crimes alone and more than 4,000 cases that are related to war crimes,” Venediktova said.
These alleged crimes include “the killing of civilians, the bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture” and “sex crimes” reported in the “occupied territory of Ukraine”, according to the magistrate. Prosecutors are also investigating “the use of prohibited weapons,” she added.
On Wednesday at the UN, US Ambassador for International Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack accused the Russian military of committing a war crime in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. .
“We now have credible information that a Russian military unit operating in the vicinity of Donetsk executed Ukrainians who were trying to surrender, rather than detaining them. If confirmed, it would be a violation of the basic principles of the laws of war,” she said.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, the investigations in the country on this type of case are carried out by “more than 8,000” people on the ground”.
“We have created a joint investigation team on the Eurojust platform (the European judicial cooperation agency, editor’s note). 14 other states have opened their own criminal cases in connection with the aggression by the Russian Federation,” said the prosecutor.
Investigators cannot, however, go to several areas in eastern Ukraine, such as those of Mariupol, Donetsk and Lugansk. “We don’t have access to these territories, but we can do our job,” she said.
“We can interview people who have been evacuated from these territories,” explained the attorney general.
Investigators are also using “the occupants’ radio connections and audio connections” to identify possible cases, Ms Venediktova concluded.
Ten Russian soldiers were thus indicted on Thursday for alleged war crimes committed in Boutcha and they will be sought, announced the services of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine on their Telegram account.
The Ukrainians accused the Russians of war crimes in this city near kyiv, but Moscow denied any responsibility and spoke of bodies “staged” by the Ukrainian authorities.