Around 10,700 civilians have been killed and 15,600 injured in Ukraine since Russia started the war in February last year. This is stated by the country’s prosecutor for war crimes, Yuriy Belousov, in an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, reports CNN. And once occupied territories are liberated, the death toll will rise many times over.
– I think there will be tens of thousands of dead in Mariupol alone, says Belousov.
According to Yuriy Belousov, the numbers of dead and injured agree with what international organizations such as the UN have stated.
In early July, the UN confirmed over 9,000 civilian deaths, including over 500 children. And like Belousov, the UN also believes the real death toll is higher.
– When we unoccupy our territories, the number will increase many times, says Belousov.
98,000 war crimes
Yuriy Belousov also states that he, together with his team, has recorded about 98,000 war crimes committed by the Russian forces since the start of the war.
He also says that 99 percent of these will be investigated by, and in, Ukraine.
– At the beginning of the war, there were expectations that someone would intervene and that all war criminals in Bucha would immediately end up in The Hague. Unfortunately, this does not happen. It is a long process, and the numbers are such that no one but us will do it, Belousov told Interfax-Ukraine.
Back in 2019, Ukrainian authorities established a special department to investigate suspected war crimes in Crimea and the Donbass region. But since Russia began the full-scale invasion, the country has been forced to take more measures – among other things, a national prosecution system for war crimes in the country is being reviewed, reports Sky News.
According to Ukraine in addition, around 19,500 children are said to have been deported, or forcibly displaced, to Russia. Of these, 386 must have returned to the country.
Russia, for its part, claims to have “received” over 700,000 Ukrainian children, and that a majority of them arrived in the country accompanied by parents or relatives.
USA: Ukrainians forced to accept Russian citizenship
At the same time, Ukrainians living in the territories occupied by Russia are forced to accept Russian citizenship.
According to a study at the American Yale residents of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya are systematically stripped of their Ukrainian identities – and if they do not apply for Russian citizenship, they are threatened with the withdrawal of humanitarian aid or detention or deportation; reports The Guardian.
Moscow says it has given Russian passports to over three million Ukrainians since 2014, when Crimea was annexed.