Donetsk, Feb 9 — DAN. Charges in connection with Kiev’s war crimes in Donbass have been brought in absentia against former Acting Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Koval (March-July 2014) and former Ukrainian Defense Minister Valery Geletey (July-October 2014), the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee (SK) reported on Thursday.
Charges in absentia have been brought against Koval and Geletgey who coordinated the military aggression against Donbass residents in 2014, as well as against commander of 92th Separate Mechanized Brigade Pavel Fedosenko, the press service said following a briefing in Donetsk conducted by SK chief Alexander Bastrykin. “The criminal case materials prove the death of 700 civilians and the wounding of at least 500 people in the period when Geletey led artillery and bombing attacks on the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.”
The charges of crimes against peace and mankind security were brought on the strength of analysis of the documents received upon the request for legal assistance and the testimonies of eyewitnesses and victims. The investigators working with detained members of the Azov regiment which is banned in Russia have uncovered new episodes of gunmen’s crimes, such as the murder of an elderly couple who wanted to evacuate from Mariupol by Azov members Slobodyanyuk and Shafulin in March 2022, the SK said.
Bastrykin heard the reports of the acting heads of the SK territorial branches in the four new regions who had filed several dozen cases over serious criminal offenses in the recent weeks. An analysis of unsolved crimes from previous years is conducted jointly with the SK Central Office. The SK said that investigators would receive state-of-the-art criminal investigation equipment in the near future.*jk