Ukraine war: The priest shot at a checkpoint

Author: Editors Desk Source: BBC News:

March 25, 2022 at 09:04

SERHII TSOMA | Village priest Rostyslav Dudarenko (L) with fellow priests Pavlo Naydenov and Serhii Tsoma (R)

Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has said the country is in the process of documenting thousands of incidents believed to contravene its criminal code on the rules of war.

As of 24 March, there have been 2,472 cases documented by her office. On Wednesday, Ms Venediktova outlined to the media how the country is handling these cases.

"Where we see that we will be successful in Ukrainian jurisdiction, and where the perpetrator of a crime will physically be in Ukraine, we will follow one strategy," she said.

"If we understand that we are not able to have success in Ukraine, we will put our resources towards the International Criminal Court, so that a specific person, an individual, suffers the punishment."

The following is an account gathered by the BBC of just one of the incidents that have been logged as a suspected war crime.

It was just over a week into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A group of volunteers - neighbours and friends - from the small village of Yasnohorodka, 40km west of Kyiv, had taken up their positions at a checkpoint guarding the entrance to the community.

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