The evidence of war crimes of the Kiev regime from 2014 to 2022 is shortly to be presented in a “Nuremberg-style” trial in Mariupol, the city dominated by the Azov militia—and there are people in Kiev who are more than a little nervous. It is no secret that Russia, along with the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, have been relentless in accumulating the documentation, made available from citizens freed from eight years of thuggishness. Added to that is care and effort to keep Azov Regiment fighters alive and to carefully screen and process them as prisoners. There are reports of testimony from some of them kept at the detention facility near Olinevka, Donetsk, that identifies the authorities in Kiev who ordered the Azov and other militias to, for instance, torture and kill Russian POWs.
Yesterday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy weighed in, describing the yet-to-occur proceedings as a “despicable show trial,” and threatening that holding such a trial would be “the line beyond which any negotiations are impossible.” Today, Speaker of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin responded, saying on social media that Zelenskyy has good reason to object to the trials: “He and the Kiev regime have reasons to be afraid. He and his inner circle ordered to bomb, shoot and kill peaceful citizens: the elderly, women, children. That is why Zelenskyy is doing everything to prevent the tribunal.” Volodin wants the Donetsk authorities to broadcast the trials, “so that the world community will know about the crimes against humanity committed by the Kiev regime.”
The Kiev Independent reported the statement of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense on the horrid preparations: “On the Independence Day of Ukraine [Aug. 24], the occupiers plan to hold a show trial of the captured defenders of Azovstal in temporarily occupied Mariupol. For this purpose, the surviving premises of the Mariupol Chamber Philharmonic are being urgently remodeled. On the stage of the philharmonic hall, iron cages are being installed, in which the Ukrainian defenders will be kept.”
