Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced Monday that it has indicted 41 former and current Ukrainian officials on accusations of committing genocide against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.

Among the officials named are former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal, National Security Adviser and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, as well as Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Russian authorities claim the officials have been responsible for the deliberate targeting of civilians in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions “with the intent of committing genocide” since fighting began between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.

According to the indictment, nearly 5,000 civilians were killed and 13,500 were injured during that period. Russia’s Prosecutor’s Office claimed that “migration, lower birth rates and higher mortality” caused the local population to fall from 6.5 million to 4.5 million between 2014 and 2022.

President Vladimir Putin regularly accuses authorities in Kyiv of trying to “exterminate” ethnic Russians in the Donbas region. The Kremlin leader said he ordered the full-scale invasion in February 2022 to protect Russians living in eastern Ukraine from persecution.

Russian law enforcement officials said Monday that they issued arrest warrants for all 41 Ukrainian officials named in the indictment. Moscow’s Basmanny District Court placed them in pre-trial detention in absentia pending their extradition to Russia.

“The authorities have taken comprehensive measures to locate and extradite the accused. However, there is little realistic chance of their participation in the criminal proceedings,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.

The case was forwarded to the Donetsk Supreme Court for further proceedings.

There was no immediate response from Kyiv. Ukrainian officials have previously rejected Russia’s allegations that its forces intentionally target civilians.

(C)THE MOSCOW TIMES 2025