MOSCOW, September 30 (RAPSI) – The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine has announced on Tuesday that criminal cases were opened against officials of Russian Investigative Committee in response to Moscow’s investigation of crimes allegedly committed in Ukraine's war-torn southeastern regions.

Kiev has described Russian investigators’ activity as interference in the sphere of its competence.

Ukrainian prosecutors also said the opening of the Russian criminal proceedings on Ukraine was designed to help the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which Kiev describes as terrorist organizations, and that it is hindering the execution of authority by Ukrainian government officials and the public.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office did not name the Russian individuals against whom it has opened the case.

The Russian Investigative Committee announced on Monday that it has launched an investigation into the genocide of Russian speakers in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. According to Russian investigators, “unidentified senior political and military officials in Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces, the National Guard and the Right Sector issued orders aimed at the extermination of precisely Russian-speaking residents in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics.”

The Ukrainian prosecutors recalled that a special department was established at the Russian Investigative Committee this summer to investigate crimes against civilians in Ukraine. Russia also opened a case against Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who is blamed for the death of Russian journalists, and a case on the use of prohibited methods and means of warfare in Donbas, where Kiev is conducting a special operation against the local self-defense forces.