The Russian Foreign Ministry is considering filing a lawsuit with The Hague's tribunal on the events that occurred in Odesa on May 2, Viktor Sorokin, the head of the second department of the Commonwealth of Independent States countries of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said at a meeting of the provisional commission monitoring the situation in Ukraine.
According to official reports, 32 people were killed and over 200 were hurt in the riots in Odesa on May 2
“We are working on the issue of filing documents in The Hague on the
events in Odesa. We are now collecting the needed information,” Sorokin
said.
However, Sorokin said the problem is that the people who witnessed
the Odesa Trade Union House being set on fire are scared. “There are
witnesses of those tragic events. They are scared,” he said.
For his part, senator Yevgeny Tarlo told the commission that the Odesa events must be investigated.
The matter should be entrusted to the Russian Investigative Committee, he said.
There is no need to travel to Ukraine to gather evidence and
eyewitness accounts, the senator said. “We can interview eyewitnesses
and collect that evidence via the Internet or through mass media. There
are vast materials for the subsequent tribunal. We must also provide
legal aid in preparing victims’ lawsuits for the European Court of Human
Rights against the criminal actions of the authorities in Kyiv,” Tarlo
said.
The situation in Ukraine should be regarded solely through the prism
of human rights violations, he said. “What happened to the Russian
journalists also requires attention. This is a terrorist attack. And for
them (the authorities in Kyiv), the main thing is to conceal the truth,
while our task is to continue breaking through the information
blockade,” Tarlo said.
