You're reading: Activists demand military prosecutor resign for slow Ilovaisk investigation

Two years after hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers were killed, wounded or captured by Russian troops and their separatist proxies near the Donbas town of Ilovaisk, their relatives and friends are still demanding prosecutors bring those responsible for the tragedy to justice.

Many personally accuse the chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios of putting little effort into the investigation, which involves top military officials.

Dozens of activists from the AutoMaidan movement picketed Matios’s house in the outskirts of Kyiv on Sept. 3. When the prosecutor didn’t present himself, the protesters threw leaflets into his mailbox which read “Matios works for Putin” and “Matios is an accomplice of DNR (a separatist republic with its center in Donetsk).

“I don’t comment on fools,” Matios told Hromadske Radio on Sept. 3 when asked about the protesters.

Other activists have organized a permanent protest in front of the Prosecutor General Office, demanding Matios’ resignation. Small pictures of Matios with the words “Matios is a traitor” could also be seen stuck to the walls on some Kyiv streets.

In August 2014, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and volunteer battalions were concentrated in and around Ilovaisk, located in some 700 kilometers from Kyiv. Their aim was to take the strategic town as a step towards the liberation of Donetsk, the separatist stronghold.

But because of poor organization and a lack of communication between the different units, the Ukrainian forces were encircled in what became known as the Ilovaisk Kettle.

Early on Aug. 29, 2014 most of the troops tried to leave their encirclement through a green corridor initially offered by the Russians. But within several miles of their journey, the Ukrainian columns came under close range shelling from Russian forces.

Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko said on Sept. 2 that according to the investigation, military commanders ignored intelligence reports which said that 1,200 separatist combatants and military vehicles were located in Ilovaisk before they launched the operation.

Initially the authorities said that only 200 had died in the battle. Matios later revised the figure stating in April 2015 that 459 Ukrainian fighters died. Those who were at Ilovaisk and activists, however, estimate the figures to be double that.

The Ilovaisk tragedy was the first big defeat of the Ukrainian army in Russia’s war against Ukraine and led the Ukrainian authorities to agree to a unfavorable peace deal with Russia in Minsk.

Volunteers who are helping the Ukrainian army made a video to commemorate two years since Ilovaisk tragedy.

The veterans, relatives and friends of those who fought in Ilovaisk gathered on Aug. 29 at the Prosecutor General’s Office in Kyiv to commemorate those killed during the battle. They also demanded resignation of Matios and that the case be heard in court as soon as possible.

Some soldiers are still being kept in the separatists prisons, while many fighters are missing and over one hundred bodies still need identifying. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates 1,000 people have gone missing since the war in eastern Ukraine began two years ago.

Volunteers from the Black Tulip group, which recovers and identifies bodies on both sides of the conflict, have brought out some 800 bodies from the war zone, Volodymyr Dorofeyev, deputy head of the organization told Hromadske Radio on Sept 4.

The Black Tulip volunteers were among the first who were allowed to pick up and bring back bodies of the Ukrainian soldiers killed at Ilovaisk from the separatist territories.