The Interview – Ukraine’s prosecutor: ‘We’ve collected evidence that Wagner has committed war crimes’

Issued on: 23/02/2023 – 21:01

He hopes, “at some stage, to capture him and make him liable in the Ukrainian courts”. 

Andriy Kostin says Kyiv registered 68 000 incidents of such horrific crimes committed by Russia, and he believes their “massive scale could lead to a level of crimes against humanity”.

Speaking from the Ukrainian capital, the prosecutor general described to FRANCE 24 the mass crimes committed in the Kyiv region in April 2022. He told us of intentional killings of civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential buildings, torture and even sexual violence. He added that when Ukrainian forces liberated the Kharkiv region last September and the Kherson region in November, they have found the same type of crimes.

“This pattern of conduct obeys to a deliberate policy instigated by the highest military and political of the Russian federation” he added.

Kostin thinks such crimes could be prosecuted on an international level, adding that the International Criminal Court is “one of the forums which are relevant”. He also wants to “make Vladimir Putin and this team responsible for the committing of their crimes”. He also calls for the establishment of a special tribunal for the crimes of Russia against Ukraine. 

As corruption is a central issue for European Union accession, he stated that this problem has been begun to be “addressed from the very first day of Zelensky’s presidency” and his appointment as prosecutor general. “Ukraine has two enemies”, he concluded: one external, Russia, and one internal, which is corruption.”