"I can say with confidence that the Investigative Committee, for its part, will give a criminal-legal assessment of the criminal actions of all those who participated in the preparation and implementation of criminal plans against the civilians of Donbass and Novorossiya," Bastrykin said in an interview with Sputnik.
The legal official noted that the task was extremely important not only from the criminal law perspective, but also from a historical point of view, as future generations should know what the residents of Donbass went through.
"We will continue to thoroughly investigate the criminal actions of the armed formations of Ukraine, including high-ranking officials. Many of them have already been indicted in absentia," the head of the agency added.
Bastrykin also said that Russia's Investigative Committee has opened more than 4,000 criminal cases related to atrocities in Donbass since 2014.
"More than 200 Ukrainian servicemen have been sentenced by the courts to long prison terms, including life imprisonment, for the murder of civilians, cruel treatment of civilians and prisoners," he said. "Among them are several dozen members of the banned Azov* regiment," he added.
Since the illegitimate coup in Ukraine in 2014, the Kiev regime has committed crimes against civilians in Donbass. It was in response to those atrocities that Russia launched its special military operation on February 24, 2022. According to President Putin, the operation is aimed at protecting the population of Donbass from Kiev's genocidal actions.
*The Azov battalion is an extremist organization banned in Russia.