Russian-sponsored militants threw ‘prisoner parades’ to humiliate Ukrainian prisoners of war and destroyed bridges in Donbas, Ukraine’s top prosecutor confirmed in two reports to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
According to her subsequent Facebook statement on Oct. 12, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said she signed the reports during a meeting of the International Council of Experts on Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict, which included four representatives of the Prosecutor’s office, 13 Ukrainian and six international experts.
The first report covered the capture of 101 service members of the special “Donbas” battalion of the National Guard of Ukraine, as well as two “POW parades” held in Aug. 24, 2014 and Jan. 22, 2015.
During these parades, 53 and 20 detained Ukrainian servicemen, respectively, were “publicly led around the occupied Donetsk and videoed by Russian media,” Venediktova stated. “They were subjected to physical violence in order to publicly punish the prisoners of war and to portray their helpless state to the press.”
Ukrainian prosecutors believe that this treatment may qualify as a war crime under the Geneva Convention.
The second report listed 43 incidents from May 2014 to January 2019 in which militant forces destroyed bridges in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
The Office of the Prosecutor General says that such actions may also qualify as a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute – “intentional attacks on civilian objects during an international armed conflict or destruction of enemy property in an international armed conflict.”
In total, since 2015, the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court has received 24 reports alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity by representatives of the Russian Federation in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
