MOSCOW, June 11 (RAPSI) – Those who are guilty of committing military crimes in eastern Ukraine will be punished even if they hide “at the bottom of the ocean,” Investigative Committee head Sergei Bastrykin said on Wednesday.

In late May, Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case on the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, where independence supporters have been fighting the Ukrainian armed forces for over a month. An investigation has been initiated against unidentified servicemen from Ukraine’s National Guard and the Right Sector.

In late May, the Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested four members of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist group who were plotting attacks in Simferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol. Earlier, Russian investigators initiated a terrorism case against Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh.

“None of those who have committed or are committing serious crimes in southeastern Ukraine will escape punishment. We will find them even at the bottom of the ocean,” Bastrykin said at a meeting held to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin’s birth date.

He recalled that a special department had been established at the Committee to investigate military crimes in Ukraine. Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said the other day that several refugees from Ukraine had been declared victims in this case.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said this case would have no legal effect.

The Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics declared independence following a May 11 referendum and soon started to form governments and law enforcement agencies. Kiev has refused to recognize the legitimacy of any of their decisions and is continuing military operations that were launched against the independence supporters in the regions in mid-April.