A Russian court on Monday ruled “in absentia” to detain two commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine accused of “genocide” and ill-treatment of Russian servicemen taken prisoner in Ukraine, Russian news agencies report.
The measure was ordered by the Basmanny District Court against the commander of the 53rd mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Andrei Polyakov, and the commander of the 95th separate airborne assault brigade, Alexei Makhov.
Both Ukrainian officials must be detained for a period of at least two months from the moment of their extradition or detention on Russian territory. The two commanders are accused of “genocide” and the use of prohibited methods of warfare. and were put on the international wanted list by the Russian regime.
Russian investigators have accused the two commanders of involvement in the “genocide of the citizens of Donbass,” an argument originally used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch a military campaign in Ukraine.
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For the first time, Russia accuses the military leaders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of “genocide”.a charge that could lead to life imprisonment, TASS reports.
Russia also intends to try the Ukrainian military who surrendered at Azovstal, in the city of Mariupol, where they were under siege for several weeks. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, about 4,000 soldiers were taken prisoner in the area.
The Ukrainian authorities want to organize an exchange of prisoners of war, but the Russian side has repeatedly indicated that considers at least some Ukrainians in the Azov Regiment to be neo-Nazi fighters guilty of war crimesand not just soldiers.
Last week, the independent Russian news agency Interfax reported that a trial of Ukrainian soldiers who had surrendered at Azovstal would begin in Mariupol.
The test will be followed by other stages, which may take place in other locations., according to the same source. All the soldiers who dug in at the Azovstal steel plant until they surrendered are being held in the self-proclaimed Russian-controlled Donetsk People’s Republic, separatist leader Denis Pushilin told Russian news agency Interfax last week.
On May 24, a Russian court ordered the detention in absentia of Maxim Marchenko, a former commander of the Ukrainian nationalist Aidar battalion and current governor of the Odessa region, at the request of a Kremlin-affiliated investigative committee.
The Investigative Committee of Russia under the President of Russia accuses Marchenko, the former commander of the Aidar battalion and the 28th and 92nd mechanized brigades, of involvement in the artillery shelling of Donetsk in March and May 2020. Basmanni applied a similar measure to Sergei Baranov, commander of the 44th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On May 24, the Federal Financial Supervision Service, Rosfinmonitoring, also included Denis Muryga, former commander of the Aidarm battalion, in the list of individuals and organizations involved in terrorist and extremist activities.
Muryga was arrested when he allegedly tried to cross the border with Russia in the Rostov region last April as a refugee.
A court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced a soldier to two months in pre-trial detention on charges of destroying a bridge in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic in 2015. and, as a result, the killing of separatist militia guards.
The military offensive launched by Russia in the early hours of February 24 in Ukraine has already forced more than 14 million people from their homes – more than eight million internally displaced people and more than 6.8 million – to neighboring countries – according to the latest UN figures. data that rank this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). Also, according to the UN, about 15 million people in Ukraine are in need of humanitarian assistance.
The Russian invasion, justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community as a whole, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia that affect virtually every industry, from banking to sports.
The UN confirmed that 4,074 civilians were killed and 4,826 injured in the war, which entered its 96th day today, stressing that the real numbers could be much higher and will only be known when besieged cities or areas where heavy fighting still took place.
