Representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation are working to identify the peoples of the Soviet Union involved in the genocide during the Great Patriotic War.

This was announced by the official representative of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia Andrei Ivanov.

"For involvement in the commission of crimes, former servicemen of Nazi Germany living in other countries are being checked," said Ivanov, quoted by RIA Novosti.

He added that the facts of the deliberate destruction of the civilian Soviet population are revealed thanks to information in the federal, regional and local archives.

In addition, the department records the evidence of eyewitnesses to the crime.

According to him, the Prosecutor General's Office also received the necessary information after inquiries sent to a number of countries.

“Thus, in accordance with Article 453 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation and on the basis of the provisions of international treaties of the Russian Federation, requests for legal assistance were sent to the competent authorities of Germany, Canada, Latvia, Poland, the USA and Estonia.

On some of them, information of interest to the investigation has been received, on others, their implementation is being monitored, ”explained the official representative of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation.

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In March 2021, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, announced the decision to combine criminal cases of Nazi atrocities against civilians into one - the genocide of the peoples of the USSR. We are talking about criminal cases of massacres in the area of ​​the village of Zhestyanaya Gorka in the Novgorod region, the Yeisk orphanage, as well as former concentration camps in the village of Moglino, Pskov region and in the area of ​​Simferopol. In addition, the proceedings included cases of mass killings of civilians in the Rostov region in 1942, where more than 30 thousand people were shot near the village of Zmiyovskaya Balka, the town of Shakhty and in the Morozovsky district.

“Taking into account the scale of punitive actions and the obtained evidence of their focus on the complete destruction of the civilian population of the Soviet republics, the IC made a decision to initiate a criminal case on the genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union by the German fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War, with which all of the above criminal proceedings were combined in one proceeding. business, "- said Bastrykin in an interview with RIA Novosti.

A month later, in April, the Investigative Committee allowed the creation of a joint investigation team with Germany to investigate the crimes of the Nazis.

"On the basis of Regulation 2 of the additional protocol to the European Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters of November 8, 2001, the issue of creating an international investigation team and including representatives of the competent authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany is being considered," said Sergey Petrov.

At the same time, in the period 2019-2020, the Russian department sent six requests abroad for legal assistance in the framework of the investigation of criminal cases on Nazi crimes during the Great Patriotic War.

In addition to the FRG, cooperation is underway on this issue with Canada and Estonia.

"Nazi crimes have no statute of limitations"

On November 20, 2020, the Lessons of Nuremberg forum was launched, timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg Trials. In a video message to its participants, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that the conclusions of the Nuremberg Trials are still relevant, and their oblivion could become a threat to world security. The head of state pointed out the importance of upholding the truths of historical memory in order to conclusively and reasonably resist deliberate distortion and falsification of the events of World War II, "especially shameless, deceitful attempts to rehabilitate and even glorify Nazi criminals and their accomplices."

“Such crimes have no statute of limitations.

They were assessed by the Nuremberg Tribunal, the signs of a crime against humanity developed by it defined the very concept of genocide and formed the basis of the UN Convention against Genocide, adopted in 1948, ”Putin said.

At the same time, the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov advocated that such concepts as "Nazism", "Fascism", "Genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union", as well as a ban on the rehabilitation and propaganda of Nazism and provisions on providing protection historical truth and countering the falsification of historical facts.

In September 2021, he announced that this bill, securing the inviolability of the principles of international law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, had been prepared.