KIEV, Ukraine, Aug. 5 (UPI) — A district court in Kiev imposed criminal charges in absentia Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and another ten military men whom the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) placed on its most wanted list, a military prosecutor said Wednesday.
Ukrainian authorities hold Gerasimov responsible in particular for a battle near the town of Ilovaysk in which government forces were encircled and suffered heavy losses. Many hundreds were feared to have been killed, as reported by Euro News.
Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, said his officials were unaware of the SBU initiatives on the arrests.
The Russian government, meanwhile, reiterated its claim that no Russian presence has ever been in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where a bulk of the fighting between pro-Kremlin separatists and Kiev forces has taken place.
“There are no Russian armed forces there, contrary to the repeated allegations of our colleagues in Ukraine and our colleagues in Europe and Washington,” Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said.
An investigation was launched into events last summer, TASS reported. Investigators later said that 459 Ukrainian military personnel were killed and another 478 were injured in armed clashes outside of Ilovaisk in August-September 2014, according to the news reports.
