A senior lawmaker from the breakaway state the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has claimed they intend to try Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a war criminal.
Yelena Shishkina told Russian state media agency TASS that the DPR would bring the charges against lawmakers who have led Ukraine from the moment Russia annexed Crimea.
The DPR is located in the Donbas region of Ukraine and has been fighting against the country's armed forces since 2014, with the backing of Russia.
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In addition to Zelenskyy, the DPR plans to charge former acting President Oleksandr Turchynov and former President Petro Poroshenko.
Shishkina told TASS: "They were the ones to put their signatures under orders to send neo-Nazis to Donbas to kill civilians here."
Shishkina chairs the DPR’s committee on criminal and administrative legislation.
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She continued: "Ukraine has put in place conditions that allowed neo-Nazi organisations to function on its territory, including amnesty for their members, failures to bring them to criminal responsibility, and legislative endorsement of crimes committed against Russians."
Shishkina also expressed the belief that world leaders that supported Ukraine should also be charged with similar war crimes.
Her comments come in the wake of the International Criminal Court confirming it would be investigating possible war crimes committed during Russia's invasion.
World leaders continue to call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to be held accountable for the rising number of civilian deaths in the country.
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Ever since Putin launched his 'special military operation' in Ukraine back in February, the Kremlin leader has continued to push the narrative that his invasion intends to 'denazify' the country.
Despite saying civilians wouldn't be targeted, more than 7,000 have been killed so far in the war - although the figure is believed to be much higher, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission.
In April, US President Joe Biden told reporters that he believed Putin was a ‘war criminal’.
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He said: “But we have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue to fight, and we have to get all the detail [to] have a war crimes trial.
“This guy is brutal and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous.”
In response Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, told TASS: “We consider unacceptable and unforgivable such rhetoric of the head of state, whose bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.”
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Topics: Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Crime
Jayden Collins