Ukrainian Authorities Successfully Identified 511 War Crimes Suspects, 81 of Which Were Found Guilty

The discovery of mass graves in Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/armyinform.com.ua)

JAKARTA - Ukraine's Prosecutor General said on Thursday that the country's authorities had succeeded in identifying 511 people suspected of committing war crimes since Russia's invasion in February 2022, with 81 of them having been convicted.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin spoke at a joint war crimes conference with the Prosecutors General of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and the President of the European Union's judicial body, Eurojust.

At a press conference after the meeting, prosecutors announced the signing of a two-year extension of the work of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), an initiative by five European Union countries to investigate war crimes in the conflict.

The JIT is conducting what Eurojust Chairman Ladislav Harman calls "the largest war crimes investigation in history."

Meanwhile, Lithuanian Prosecutor General Nida Grunskiene said JIT had so far spoken to more than 5,000 Ukrainian citizens as part of their investigation, as quoted by Reuters, March 1.

Commenting on the 81 that have been dropped, Kostin acknowledged that most were carried out without suspects being detained.

He said Ukraine wanted to get justice as quickly as possible rather than waiting until the war was over.

"Most of these sentences were carried out in absentia, but this shows the fact that we are getting justice now," he explained.

According to Kostin, discussions are underway with more than 40 countries regarding the possibility of establishing a war crimes tribunal. He indicated that a decision on the format of this year's panel would be a “strong signal,” but did not elaborate on when the panel might begin.

Kostin added that such a trial would likely last several years after it begins.

On that occasion, Kostin and Grunskiene said that investigators managed to find out the identities of three people, all pro-Russian militants from the Donetsk region, who were suspected of killing Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius in the city of Mariupol.

Kvedaravicius' death was announced by Ukraine's defense ministry in April 2022. Kostin on Thursday said the film director died as a result of torture inflicted by the three suspects, including broken bones, knife wounds, and mock executions.

The director is making a documentary showing the suffering of Mariupol residents during the brutal, months-long siege of the city by advancing Russian troops. The documentary, Mariupolis 2, was released several months after his death.

It is known that Russian authorities deny that their troops committed war crimes, even though the conflict has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians.