Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova notes that the Prosecutor's Office is taking steps to ensure a sufficient level of publicity and openness of the results of the investigation into Ilovaisk tragedy, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) said on its website on Thursday.

"We have made a decision on the need to declassify materials of criminal proceedings in relation to the organization and conduct of hostilities in the area of the city of Ilovaisk. The Ukrainian Security Service [SBU] has already sent appropriate requests for declassification of documents to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other bodies," Venediktova said.

According to her, work is now underway to improve the PGO official website, where a separate section has appeared on the events near Ilovaisk. "Everyone will be able to receive information about the progress and results of the investigation at any time, as well as to get acquainted with photocopies of declassified materials. Society must know the truth," Venediktova said.

As reported, at the end of August 2014, near Ilovaisk, Donetsk region, Russian mercenaries and subdivisions of the Russian Armed Forces that invaded Donbas surrounded Ukrainian volunteer battalions, units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and then shot the Ukrainian military leaving the encirclement, who, after representatives of the armies of the two countries reached an appropriate agreement was leaving the surrounded city through the so-called "green corridor."

During these events, according to the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, 366 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, 429 received wounds of varying severity, 300 were captured, and about eight dozen more are considered missing. In addition, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered losses in weapons and military equipment in the amount of almost UAH 300 million.

In the summer of 2019, The Guardian newspaper informed on a report by the British research group Forensic Architecture on the participation of the Russian Federation in the battles near Ilovaisk in Ukraine in 2014. The researchers said they collected and cataloged numerous satellite imagery of Russian armed convoys in Ukraine, as well as photographs of the T-72B3 tank. Researchers note that at that time such tanks were in service only with the Russian army.