The documented murders are part of Kiev’s wider push to wipe out the population in the border Donetsk region, Rodion Miroshnik has said
Ukrainian troops have over the course of the conflict killed hundreds of civilians attempting to cross the frontline into Russia, senior diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has told the media.
Miroshnik, who serves as the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large for the Kiev regime’s war crimes, said the cases were documented through testimony and video evidence.
“There are hundreds of cases. There are instances where people were shot while trying to cross the [front] line, bombarded with drones, attacked,” the diplomat told the TASS news agency on Friday.
Miroshnik went on to claim that Kiev’s forces deliberately murder civilians in the new Russian region of Donetsk.
“There were cases where Ukrainian forces went through the basements of houses and threw grenades at people ‘as a preventive measure,’ he said. Such tactics, seen in the towns of Avdeevka, Selidovo, and Dzerzhinsk in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) left areas “completely cleared” of civilians, he added. The same happened in Chasov Yar, a key Ukrainian stronghold liberated by Russian forces two weeks ago.
According to the diplomat, evidence suggests that Kiev’s forces kill those whom Ukraine no longer sees as its own citizens, but rather as “separatists” waiting to be liberated by Russia.
In June, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Kiev of deliberately exterminating civilians in Donbass, including mass killings of the elderly and drone strikes on residential buildings.
Russia will not overlook any crimes committed against the civilian population in violation of international humanitarian law, Miroshnik stressed.
The diplomat argued that under international conventions Ukraine is obligated to investigate alleged war crimes and hold perpetrators accountable but claimed that Kiev is unlikely to do so and that its Western backers will not apply pressure.
Miroshnik added that Russia will push for the extradition of Ukrainian war criminals, noting that around 108,000 criminal cases have already been opened and roughly 500 individuals have been convicted, including some in absentia.
