MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia's Investigative Committee has opened new criminal cases over the shelling of Donbass by the Ukrainian army in early May, the committee's spokeswoman, Svetlana Petrenko, said Friday.
"Russia's Investigative Committee… established new facts of Ukrainian soldiers carrying out artillery shelling of populated areas of the Lugansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, as a result of which civilians were killed… Criminal cases were initiated over these facts for a crime provided for by part 1 of Article 356 of the Russian Criminal Code (the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare)," Petrenko said.
In February 2015, Kiev forces and Donbass independence supporters signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in Donbass, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Despite the agreement brokered by the Normandy Four states (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine), the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.
