Communists ask Russian govt to blacklist Ukrainians responsible for Donbass war
Two communist MPs have asked PM Dmitry Medvedev to issue a lifelong ban for entering Russia for Ukrainian police and military who waged war against people’s militia in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions of that country.
“We are asking you, in cooperation with law enforcement bodies, to create the fullest possible list of persons who were taking an active part in the so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ [in eastern Ukraine] in order to issue them with a lifelong ban from entering Russia,” reads the letter by Valery Rashkin and Sergey Obukhov.
Copies of the letter have been also forwarded to the head of the Federal Migration Service, the prosecutor general, interior minister, director of the Federal Security Service and the head of the Investigative Committee.
READ MORE: Ruling party MP proposes Russia’s own international tribunal for war criminals
In the same letter, Rashkin and Obukhov expressed concern that recent violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Ukrainian military could be a sign of preparations for a resumption of the full-scale operation against the people of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
“Considering the disastrous consequences of the crimes committed by Ukrainian punishment units, every participant of the so-called anti-terror operation must be slapped with a lifelong ban from entering Russia. The lists of such people must be available for the Federal Migration Service as well as to border guards of the Federal Security Service and police,” they wrote.
The two lawmakers also reminded the PM and other recipients that Russia’s Investigative Committee had earlier started a criminal case against Ukrainian military over the use of banned methods of warfare.
READ MORE: Russia seeks international PACE group to probe crimes against humanity
In September this year the committee launched several criminal cases against pro-Kiev politicians on charges of using banned methods of warfare and committing genocide of ethnic Russians. The suspects in the case include Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and the governor of the Dnepropetrovsk Region, Igor Kolomoyskiy.
In March, MP Vyacheslav Nikonov of the majority United Russia party proposed the establishment of Russia’s own version of the international court for war crimes as the existing body in The Hague is dependent on nations that sponsor the war crimes in Ukraine.
In May 2014, MP Leonid Slutsky of the nationalist party LDPR said that the CIS – the Russia-led economic and political bloc uniting many of the former Soviet republics – could set up a criminal court of its own in order to adjudicate on everything that took place in Ukraine.
