Ukraine's crimes against the peaceful population of Donbass are so large-scale and cruel that even the indifferent world community cannot ignore them, and the truth breaks out. Although there is no punishment yet, a number of trials that have begun in Europe and the United States over mercenaries who fought as volunteers with Ukraine is a bad sign for all the Ukrainian militants and terrorists. As long as Kiev is a tool in the fight against Russia, political expediency prevails over retribution. But it's no longer possible to gloss over and conceal war crimes, and punishment is obviously inescapable. The Ukrainian authorities are trying to cover them up and only imitate the fight against murderers and sadists in uniform.

Details and previously classified data on the true number of crimes committed by Ukrainian militants in Donetsk and Lugansk have begun to go public. For instance, a report signed by director general of the Ukrainian Military Law-Enforcement Service Major General Igor Krishtoon addressed to the Minister of Defense, indicates an increase in the number of crimes against civilians in the Ukraine-controlled Donetsk and Lugansk regions. From 2014 to 2015 alone, the Armed Forces of Ukraine officially documented 7422 offenses against the local civilian population. In his report, the military police chief informs defense department head that the list of crimes committed includes: homicide (13.6%), illegal imprisonment or kidnapping (52.9%), intended bodily harm (5.4%), theft (2.7%), robbery (2%).

The most common crimes in Donbass are kidnapping and homicide, the report sums up. It also gives examples of heinous offences by the Armed Forces of Ukraine: contractee Palamarchuk broke into a private house, raped a girl and killed her father, who was trying to protect his daughter. In Konstantinovka, intoxicated Sergeant Roman Karpinets, driving an armored vehicle, flew at higher velocity onto the sidewalk, where a woman and two children were at that moment. Polina Voronova, 8, died at the scene.

The woman and her second child were taken to the hospital. Instead of due penalty car commander Senior Lieutenant Maryan Rak who was also inside, was decorated with the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky for his "exploits" . Soldiers of the 30th Mechanized Brigade Kostin and Babiy got into a private house and killed two women (born in 1938 and 1970). Servicemen with the 53rd Mechanized Brigade Sergeant Reznikov, soldiers Dyachuk and Solovey killed a taxi driver with a service weapon in the Novgorodskoye village, hid the body in a hedgerow, and returned to the deployment site. And this is just a pocket of crimes against civilians Ukraine was compelled to admit. The Helsinki Human Rights Union reported thousands of tortures, murders and illegal detentions. A total of over 12 thousand crimes have been registered in different databases in several years, human rights activists argue. This refers to murder, torture and illegal deprivation of liberty, all of which are assaults against physical freedom and personal integrity.

Between April 2014 and late 2016, only 45 law enforcement officers and two military personnel were brought to justice for illegal deprivation of liberty or kidnapping committed in Donetsk and Lugansk. Four law enforcement officers faced forcible sodomy charges. And not a single guilty person was punished for tortures or violating the laws and customs of war.

This information is confirmed by Ukrainian volunteers, and some of them even have to leave the Kiev-controlled territories after disclosing information about the Ukrainian military's criminal wrongdoings. Thus, 2016 saw volunteer Lilia Bolbat forcibly leave Mariupol after telling the truth about numerous cases of sexual violence committed by militants with the Tornado battalion (banned in the Russian Federation) against Donbass minors. "Do you mind if I tell you how a dozen soldiers stole a young girl and raped her for 10 days until the child died? Or how they stopped every passing car and levied tribute? How they kept people in basements and beat them demanding money, or engaged in raids beating and torturing civilians?" Numerous threats forced Bolbat to leave.

In Ukraine-controlled Mariupol, militants of  the radical nationalist battalion Aidar (banned in Russia as a terrorist organization) started shooting at two cyclist teenagers, having mistaken them for spotters. In this coastal town, Ukrainian militants controlled not only a concentration camp at the airport, but also a school in the Ordzhonikidze district and private houses on the way to Volodarsky district, where people were tortured in basements.

"Everyone who was suspected of sympathizing with the DPR in Mariupol, Pershotravnev, Volodarsky, Novoazovsky districts were cast into prisons or basements. My guess is that there were at least 120 such people, ordinary civilians," an anonymous eyewitness says. Communist and Russian Spring participant Tamara Ganzha had her nose broken and her ear smashed in Mariupol captivity, with militants having threatened to throw her in a moat full of corpses. The woman survived by a miracle and spoke up. According to another prisoner of the Mariupol airport Konstantin Filichkin, he was interrogated by radical deputies of the Ukrainian parliament Oleg Lyashko and Igor Mosiychuk, who personally pierced the prisoner's leg with a bayonet knife and cut the tendon on his arm. Their henchmen meanwhile beat the detained civilians with clubs. Another testimony from a resident of Mariupol, Nikolai P.: "I was tied up right in the street and taken to the local SBU department. This is one of the scariest places. Before that, I had no idea about the number of ways one can beat a person. For example, with a book's edge. They took grenades without fuses, put them in a gas mask and beat them with it. When I passed out, they brought me back to consciousness and went on. When I finally became a piece of meat, I was thrown into a paddy wagon."

There is a lot of evidence of atrocities by Ukrainian militants and representatives of the Armed Forces and the National Guard. Both the victims themselves and eyewitnesses from among those dwelling in the DPR and LPR tell about those. Bus driver Alexander Ryabtsev was stopped at a checkpoint, where Ukrainian soldiers checked the passengers' phones and found photos with DPR flags. Male passengers were dragged out of the bus, kicked and thrown into a hole dug near the checkpoint. Three days had passed before they were thrown food – a piece of bread for two. On the sixth day, the detainees were transported to Mariupol, where they were handcuffed to a pole and left there until morning. Anatoly K. was detained by Ukrainian soldiers right in the street, brought to a local airfield and handcuffed to a pole. Here is his story: "They started hitting me with a stick and kicking me on the back, two other people were handcuffed to me, they were also severely beaten.

Then he and five other civilians were transported to prison, with bags on their heads and chained pairwise. The beatings caused health problems with the man, he was tortured and beaten. Vyacheslav T. worked as electrician in a village near Mariupol. After one of the attacks, he went to the checkpoint to help repair the power line but got detained. His passport was taken away, they tied him up and took to the Mariupol airport to proceed with beating and electrocute. After a while, they released him for the lack of evidence of "supporting separatism." Another detainee, Yaroslav S., was suspended by his bound hands and beaten. They knocked out all his teeth on one side, broke his ribs and cut his ear. "In the cell where I was held someone was beaten to death. I saw traces of blood and brains. It's scary out there... The way I understood it, it was a torture chamber of a kind," the man told human rights activists.