Evidence of alleged Russian war crimes is being collected, Ukrainian MP says

Vadym Ivchenko spoke to the PA news agency after the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor announced it had launched an investigation.

04 March 2022

A member of Ukraine’s parliament has said the country’s government is collating examples of alleged war crimes by Russian forces, after the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutor announced it had launched an investigation into the situation.

Speaking to the PA news agency from Kyiv, Vadym Ivchenko said video footage and other evidence was being gathered by officials.

The ICC announced its investigation on Wednesday night, amid reports of the use by Russian troops of cluster bombs, with a nursery school and a hospital both reportedly hit.

“We are gathering all the information, all the videos,” Mr Ivchenko told PA.

Mr Ivchenko also called for a humanitarian corridor to be established, saying that aid is not reaching some areas.

He said Sumy, a city in Ukraine’s northeast, is “now without a supply of water and supply of food…(people are) just afraid to go there with any humanitarian aid”.

He added that Russian troops have surrounded the city, saying: “Imagine what the people in Sumy feel…it’s a humanitarian catastrophe, and it’s not only one city.

“The humanitarian equation should be negotiated in the mediation of the United Nations or countries like the United States or the United Kingdom.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the country closer to European nations, Mr Ivchenko also said.

“Now, we are in the family of European countries.

“And now we really feel all the systems from all the European Union, from other countries…(the) United Kingdom, United States, Canada.”

Echoing pleas from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr Ivchenko called too for Nato to impose a no-fly zone over the country.

“We need the no-fly zone for our civilians.

“Our mothers and our children are not using bombs or missiles.

“They just live here.

“We need to protect them.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has previously rejected such demands, saying that it would involve “shooting down Russian planes”.

Lesia Vasylenko, another member of Ukraine’s parliament, also called for a no-fly zone to be imposed on Thursday.

In a video posted on her Twitter feed, she said: “We need a no-fly zone imposed over the whole of Ukraine.

“We cannot provide it ourselves, so we ask for help.

“You can help a country to still exist tomorrow.

“You can help Ukrainian children to wake up and see the sunlight, and not to go down to bed in the dark with the lullabies of sirens in the background.”