MOSCOW, June 19 (RAPSI) – Russia will request an international investigation into the death of the VGTRK journalists in Ukraine, said Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law.

“(Ukrainian President Petro) Poroshenko has reportedly issued instructions to initiate an investigation. But we are not convinced that the Ukrainian authorities can investigate this tragedy objectively and without bias, or that the guilty parties will be brought to account,” Dolgov said as quoted by the Russian News Service radio station.

Vesti correspondent Igor Kornelyuk and sound engineer Anton Voloshin were killed on Tuesday in a mortar attack in the vicinity of Metallist and Mirny, small towns near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. The Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Vasily Nikitin, has put the blame on the National Guard’s mortar fire. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said the independence fighters were guilty of causing the death of a journalist, without saying which of the two.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has announced that Dnipropetrovsk Region Governor Ihor Kolomoisky and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov could be implicated in the death of over 100 civilians, including the Russian journalists.

“We will demand an efficient investigation under international oversight into all the attacks against civilians, including the death and illegal abduction of our journalists,” Dolgov said.