The National Police is investigating almost 100 000 war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine.
As the head of the National Police Ivan Vyhivskyi told "Interfax-Ukraine", in the future the results of these investigations will become the basis for the prosecution of Russian war criminals in international courts.
According to Vyhivskyi, the National Police is currently investigating 96 500 war crimes. This is approximately 90% of all war crimes investigated by Ukrainian law enforcement officers. This is primarily due to the fact that the police is the largest law enforcement agency with the largest number of investigators.
Materials related to rocket attacks, torture and rape are mainly documented and investigated by the police, and then they are handed over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), since this is their responsibility. The police also interacts with other law enforcement agencies.
Vyhivskyi called the case of the deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories one of the most high-profile cases investigated by the police. It is for this reason that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Putin.
- Deportation of Ukrainian children is one of Russiaʼs war crimes, for which the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the childrenʼs ombudsman of the Russian Federation Maria Lvova-Belova. Currently, it is known about the forced deportation of at least 19 453 Ukrainian children to Russia, although in the Russian Federation it was said that there were more than 700 000 children. Ukraine also has evidence that Belarus participates in the deportation of Ukrainian children.
- On May 23, 2023, the Belarusian opposition stated that Belarus participated in the deportation and removed 2 150 Ukrainian children, including orphans between the ages of 6 and 15. They were sent to Belarusian camps and sanatoriums. After that, the Ukrainian Prosecutorʼs Office started an investigation. In July, the Center of National Resistance reported that Oleksiy Talay, a member of the Belarusian Paralympic team, was involved in the deportations.