On May 31, 2018, press conference “Armed conflict: the Russian Federation’s military support for the illegal armed formations of DPR and LPR” took place in Kyiv to present the UHHRU report

Find the report on our website

Among the speakers were UHHRU Strategic Litigation Center lawyer Vitaliya Lebid, UHHRU Documentation Center expert Sergiy Movchan, Director of International Research Center of Security Problems, co-author of the report Oleksandr Korenkov and Army FM radio host, volunteer at Rebel Research Center, co-author of the report Artem Konopkin.

Having been gathering evidence of war crimes since 2014 and having prepared several applications to the International Criminal Court, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union provided arguments for its perspective regarding the role of the Russian Federation in the conflict, drawing on the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. One of the components of evidence gathering was proving the military support for the so-called “DPR”/”LPR” done by supplying them with arms and through direct involvement of Russia’s armed forces in the organization and planning of military operations.

The speakers emphasized the participation in the conflict not only of Russia’s regular army, but also of private military companies based in Russia: RSB-Group, MAR, ATK GROUP, Slavonic Corps Limited, Wagner, ENOT CORP and Cossacks. Moreover, large numbers of modern weapons and military vehicles of Russian manufacture end up in the conflict zone, namely the T-72B3 and T-90 tanks as well as BTR-82AM armored personnel carriers. Over the 3 years of the conflict, Russia has increased the amount of weapons sent to Donbas by a factor of 10.

Between June 2014 and November 2016, soldiers of 75 military units of Russian armed and security forces were spotted in Ukraine’s territory. The experts managed to identify ground troops (45 military units), airborne troops (12 military units), special units of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (7 special units), navy (4 units), National Guard (5 units) and aerospace defense forces.