Moscow - The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into an assault on the Russian Embassy in Kyiv in June 2014, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax.
“The investigation has found that groups of unidentified individuals numbering over 1,500 radical members of armed nationalistic units Right Sector, Maidan Self-Defense and other as yet unidentified nationalists committed an assault on the Russian Embassy in Kyiv in the period from June 14 to 15, 2014,” Markin said.
A criminal case has been opened on charges of “attack on service premises and transport vehicles of people under international protection,” Markin said.
“Aggressive people armed with axes, baseball bats, rocks, Molotov cocktails and other items, chanting anti-Russian slogans, overturned, damaged and destroyed seven diplomatic automobiles parked in a parking lot and broke up the pavement in front of the embassy building,” Markin said.
After that, the said individuals broke all the windows at the front of the building using the paving stones and attempted to set it on fire with Molotov cocktails, he said.
“Material damage exceeding 18.8 million rubles was caused to the building and other embassy property,” he said.
The investigation is determined to identify “all organizers and individuals who financed this crime” and hold them liable, he said.
“The investigation already possesses information on these people,” Markin said.
Explaining why the Investigative Committee was only opening the investigation now, Markin said it had been hoped that Ukrainian authorities would conduct an impartial investigation into the incident.
“However, after several months have passed, we see that they have confined themselves merely to formal detentions of several people involved in the unrest. The real organizers of the crimes and those who financed them have not been punished,” Markin said.
In addition, the amount of damage caused to the embassy building has been determined only now, Markin said. “Therefore, the Investigative Committee has decided to open a criminal case and identify all individuals responsible for assaulting the Russian Embassy,” he said.
“We will also legally evaluate what Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and his subordinates did when they where standing on the square near the Russian embassy but did not take the necessary measures to curb the nationalists’ criminal actions,” Markin added.
