Four hundred and ten bodies of slaughtered civilians have already been transported out of the territories of the Kyiv region that had been liberated from the russian forces, announced the chief Prosecutor of Ukraine, Iryna Venediktova.
"This hell must be documented to punish the anti humans who created it on our land. Let me stress: we must bring them to justice in national and international courts," she wrote on her Facebook page.
Venediktova said that state prosecutors, investigators and court experts are on duty in forensic labs to conduct autopsies and collect DNA samples. Four hundred ten bodies of killed civilians have been transported from the territory around Kyiv on April 1-3; the prosecutors and experts have already examined one hundred forty.
At the same time, experts work with the local population, searching for witnesses and victims and collecting photo and video evidence. It is a delicate job, as people are terrorized, exhausted and deeply traumatized; they'd survived unspeakable horrors.
Venediktova added that from the first days of the war, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine have been working on the criminal case of the genocide against the Ukrainian people committed by the political and military authorities of the Russian Federation. Special attention goes to the mass atrocities in Mariupol, the communities of the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Currently, the entire territory liberated from the russian occupiers is divided into forensic zones, where work criminal investigation groups, including prosecutors, investigators and police officers. Criminal inspectors, pyrotechnicians, dog trainers, medical court experts and medics are involved in examining the area. The teams of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine always examine the site first: the enemy mined cities and villages, there is still a lot of unexploded ammunition, and sometimes even the bodies were booby-trapped.
Over fifty experts from the national police and Prosecutor's office are involved in the preliminary investigation of Bucha and the surrounding area. Similar work is happening in all liberated towns of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions. The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine will further increase the number of crime scene investigation groups to streamline the collection of evidence of war crimes.
"Some people already line up pretending to be willing to help the police document the crimes, and what they want instead is to take a selfie at a tragic spot. I am saying to all these "helpers": this is a crime scene, only accessible to professionals who must leave the scene intact and collect all critical evidence according to international standards. Besides, these areas are dangerous; the enemy mined many places, there is a lot of unexploded ammunition," said the Prosecutor General.
Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs Dmytro Kuleba appealed to the missions of the International Criminal Court and the international organizations to come to Bucha and other communities of the Kyiv region as soon as possible to confirm evidence of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by russians.
After the suburbs of Kyiv were liberated from the russians, the atrocities committed by the russian occupiers came to light. The Mayor of Bucha announced that 280 residents were buried in a mass grave. All of them were civilians. More bodies of killed and tortured Ukrainian citizens are being discovered in the liberated city, some younger than 16. Russians shot these people in the back of their heads. Many bodies have white ribbons - a sign that they are civilians.
In late February, Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, initiated the investigation of russian crimes against Ukraine. He qualified the actions of the russian military as "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity." The Prosecutor stated that Ukraine, not being a member of the Statute of Rome of the ICC, can't deliver the case to his office by itself.
As of March 25, forty-one countries appealed to the ICC on behalf of Ukraine. The Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Iryna Venediktova, appointed Howard Morrison as her advisor. Morrison was a judge in Hague for ten years and will advise the Ukrainian prosecution as to the war crimes of the Russian Federation.