PROSECUTOR-GENERAL-MARIUPOL

Prosecutor General: What is happening today in Mariupol can be qualified as genocide

KYIV. March 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova says that she considers the crimes committed in Mariupol from the point of view of a possible qualification of "genocide."

"What is happening today in Mariupol is no longer a war crime. War has rules, war crimes concern these rules. And here it is already beyond any rules," Venediktova said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.

She said: "I look at it from the point of view of the possibility of qualifying 'genocide:' the whole city is held hostage, people without water, without food, without heat. It is impossible to leave, the columns that are trying to leave are shot... This is a city from which adults and children were deported."

According to the prosecutor general, more than 2,000 children were deported from Mariupol.

"What is this all about? Is it just a war crime? It is much more than a war crime. Therefore, as a prosecutor, I am very cautious about the possibility of qualifying as genocide, but as a thinking citizen, I perfectly understand what is happening to our people," Venediktova said.

The prosecutor general said: "We are not talking about Donbas and Crimea. Putin wants to destroy Ukraine as a state. We are talking about the destruction of the Ukrainian people as a nation. Deportation is connected with this... We have this experience in the last century."

Answering a question whether it is possible to speak of "ethnic cleansing" using the example of Mariupol, the prosecutor general said: "In order to talk about a specific qualification, we must reach this qualification... I look at the possibility of qualifying as genocide. And what will be included in the understanding genocide, I will tell you right away when there are grounds."