"A criminal case was initiated on the discovery of mass graves of civilians in the territory of Donbass ... under part 1 of article 356 of the Russian Criminal Code — ill-treatment of the civilian population, the use of means and methods in an armed conflict prohibited by an international treaty", the statement says.
"The remains of at least 295 civilians who died as a result of indiscriminate shelling by Ukrainian armed forces in 2014 were exhumed from them. It is already known that among the remains there are bodies of women of different ages", the statement says.
In August-October 2021, five spontaneous mass graves were discovered in the village of Slavyanoserbsk, in the area of the residential area Sokogorovka Pervomaisk, the village of Vidnoe-1 near Lugansk and on the outskirts of the village of Verkhneshevyrevka, Krasnodonsky district.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the current events in Donbass a "genocide", saying that the Ukrainian government continues to violate human rights, including by legalising the discrimination of the Russian-speaking population in the country.
The Ukrainian government came to power as a result of a West-backed coup in 2014. Following the upheaval, Donetsk and Lugansk declared their independence from Kiev and became known as the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, collectively known as the Donbass region. Ever since, the region has been at war with Kiev. Despite the fact that the sides managed to negotiate - thanks to international mediation - a truce in 2015, there has been little progress towards solving the conflict.