GENEVA, September 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called the mass burial of civilians near Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, a military crime, that could have been committed by Ukraine’s security forces, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin, said on Wednesday.

“Yesterday [on Tuesday] a mass burial of executed civilians was discovered on the territory of the Donetsk region that was controlled by the Ukrainian security forces. It looks like that this military crime is their work,” Russia’s permanent representative to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin, said.

The diplomat said that Russia will be carefully watching how the Ukrainian leadership is committed to the investigation of all these crimes. Borodavkin also said “numerous acts of atrocity by punitive battalions in Ukraine’s southeast won’t stay unpunished.”

Russian Foreign Ministry’s human rights commissioner Konstantin Dolgov said on Wednesday the Russian Foreign Ministry is encouraging the international organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe, to join the effort to investigate the mass burial.

“Ukrainian authorities should bear the responsibility as this is the territory of Ukraine and there are signs that at the moment when the crimes were committed, the territory [near Donetsk] was controlled by the National Guard battalions. This points fingers to the potential perpetrators and organizers of the latest murder,” Dolgov said.

The diplomat said Russia is seriously concerned that despite the pledges, Ukraine’s authorities, including President Petro Poroshenko, have failed to investigate the crimes.

Dolgov said this failure is linked to the fact that “these crimes have been committed by those nationalist and radical forces that are still playing a great role in the political life of Ukraine.”

The diplomat has also criticized the West’s “double standards” in failing to condemn the crime.

Russia’s ruling party urges international probe into mass graves near Donetsk

Russia's ruling United Russia party has called to establish an international commission to investigate mass burials found near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

“This is a specific case. It needs to be investigated in the framework of the international commission," a party member and political analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov said on Wednesday.

Grave with beheaded bodies found on Ukrainian National Guard positions in eastern Ukraine

The first exhumation results following the discovery showed that the civilians, mainly young women, had been raped, tortured, tied up and gunned down. “One of these women was pregnant,” Nikonov said.

The Russian lawmaker said measures need to be taken to “punish the military crimes for the sake of those dead, alive and those who are still to be born.” He criticized the international human rights groups for failing to react to the reports.

Grave found on Ukrainian National Guard positions in eastern Ukraine

Militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic on Tuesday found burials on the site of Kommunar mine’s wood depot, 60 kilometres from Donetsk.

“This may be a mass grave. The bodies are to be exhumed. The whole area will be studied. Other burials also have been found,” a militia fighter told ITAR-TAS

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