Russia has charged 92 members of Ukraine’s military command with crimes against humanity, according to Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee.
In total, Moscow has opened more than 1,300 criminal cases against Ukraine’s military and political leadership, Bastrykin said in an interview with the government news site Rossiyskaya Gazeta published on Monday. He did not name any of the accused.
CNN has not independently verified Bastrykin’s claims.
“In the course of the preliminary investigation, more than 220 people were identified, involved in crimes against the peace and security of humanity, which do not have a statute of limitations, including representatives of the high command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, so-called as well as commanders of military units who shot at civilians,” Bastrykin told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
“A total of 92 commanders and their subordinates have been charged. “96 people have been declared wanted, in particular 51 commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” he said.
The head of the Investigative Committee also suggested establishing a separate international tribunal for crimes in Ukraine.
“Given the position of the ‘collective West’, which openly sponsors Ukrainian nationalism and supports the Kyiv regime, the establishment of such a tribunal under the auspices of the United Nations in the current perspective is extremely doubtful,” he said.
“The creation of the court and its statutes can be formalized through an agreement between Russia, the member states of these organizations, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
A bit of background: Bastrykin’s allegations come as Ukraine is investigating more than 20,000 war crimes, according to Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s now-former prosecutor general.
Earlier, Venediktova said Ukraine had identified more than 600 Russian war crimes suspects and had begun prosecuting about 80 of them. Two Russian soldiers have already been convicted under Ukrainian criminal law.
Earlier this month, prosecutors from Ukraine and the International Criminal Court (ICC) met in The Hague to share expertise in investigating global war crimes and apply it to atrocities committed in Ukraine.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, called Ukraine the “scene of the crime” after visiting the Ukrainian towns of Bucha and Borodyanka in April, where mass graves were found and civilians killed following the Russian withdrawal.
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