MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia's Investigative Committee is holding an inquiry into 60 criminal cases over the war crimes committed against civilians in the conflict-torn southeastern Ukrainian region of Donbass, Russia's Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said Friday.
"Russia's Investigative Committee is currently investigating 60 criminal cases over the facts of numerous killings of civilians in southeastern Ukraine, the use of forbidden means and methods of warfare, genocide of the Russian-speaking national group living in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, kidnappings, impeding the professional activity of journalists, their killings and other cases," Markin said during a lecture at Moscow State University.
In February 2015, a peace agreement was signed between Ukraine’s conflicting sides in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, after marathon talks of the Normandy Four countries, comprising Russia, Germany, Ukraine and France. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and constitutional reforms, which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
