"To investigate genocide cases, we use various capabilities — expert ones, above all. Medical examination of the remains helps determine gender, age, the exact cause of death. Forensic examination determines how traumas were received. There are ballistic studies and even art history studies, which help find out if the discovered objects have certain value. DNA examination helps answer many questions that are important to the investigators," Bastrykin said.
Science and expert review are not the only options available to investigators.
"We talk to witnesses of those gloomy days — concentration camp survivors, who share what they remember with investigators, which is now extremely important as proof for criminal investigations," Bastrykin said.
Investigators are also combing through archived materials and consulting with historians. Russia is working with other countries on these investigations, Bastrykin said.
Russia is aware of attempts abroad to review the conclusions of the Nuremberg trials and misrepresent history, Alexander Bastrykin said.
"Unfortunately, we are now also seeing attempts to misrepresent the history of World War II. This happens, for example, when foreign officials consciously ignore the key role played by the Soviet Union in the victory, try to review the decisions of the Nuremberg trials. We can see attempts, especially in Baltic countries and Ukraine, to present as heroes, without any respect for the truth, those who were committing vicious crimes against civilians. And the Investigative Committee does not ignore such attempts to rehabilitate Nazism," Bastrykin said.
For instance, the committee has a case against a Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Bastrykin told Sputnik.
"We will do everything in our power so that the terrible tragedies of the past war never repeat themselves, so that future generations remember the horror of the Holocaust," the head of the Russian Investigative Committee emphasized.
