The occupiers' crimes investigated by the PGOU fall into three categories – Kostin
The crimes committed by the Russian occupiers which are currently being investigated by the Prosecutor General's Office and their international partners fall into three categories: crimes of aggression, genocide. and war crimes.
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said this at a conference call under the auspices of the Brussels Analytical Center for European Politics, Ukrinform reports.
"Currently, the PGOU is investigating three main areas: the crime of aggression, the crime of genocide, and war crimes. Undoubtedly, waging an aggressive war results in war crimes and mass atrocities, it is defined as the main international crime, which inculdes all other crimes in itself – and this is a quote from the Nuremberg Tribunal documents," stressed the Prosecutor General.
He noted that the main evidence of the crime of aggression is Putin's actions as the President of the Russian Federation and the commander-in-chief of its armed forces, who on February 24, 2022 gave the order for an armed invasion of Ukraine to commence and whose criminal behaviour still continues.
"This is a crime of leadership, which entails other international crimes. Therefore, the main suspects in this crime are the political and military leaders of the Kremlin regime, who planned, prepared, organized, and executed this act of aggression," explained Kostin.
According to him, over 66,000 cases of war crimes have been filed in the PGOU Office: from indiscriminate shelling of civilians to torture and sexual violence.
"Unfortunately, the scale of these crimes is truly devastating. The number of deaths caused by them among the civilian population already exceeds 9 thousand, including over 460 children. The number of injured civilians exceeds 12,000, of which over 900 are children. Therefore, our main task is to ensure responsibility for these international crimes, and not only for the immediate perpetrators, the Russian soldiers, but also for those who gave them orders and organized this criminal invasion and act of aggression," the Prosecutor General noted.
As IMI reported, on January 19, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in support of the action to create an international tribunal to bring to justice all those guilty of the crime of aggression against Ukraine, which was committed under the political and military leadership of the Russian Federation and its allies.
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