In a move to further publicize the real state of things between the two war torn countries which are Ukraine and Russia, the United States (U.S.) has established a new conflict monitoring body which will be used to build legal cases against Russia for crimes committed during its war on Ukraine.
“The Conflict Observatory will ensure that crimes committed by Russia’s forces are documented and perpetrators are held accountable,” State Department spokesman, Ned Price, said on Tuesday as he announced the creation of the body.
He had all the programme would capture, analyse, and make publicly available open-source information and evidence of atrocities, human rights abuses and harm to civilian infrastructure, including Ukraine’s cultural heritage. The reports will be posted on ConflictObservatory.org.
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The spokesperson said the observatory was a collaboration between scientists and the private sector.
He said the goal is to contribute to eventual prosecutions in Ukraine’s domestic courts, courts in third-party countries, U.S. courts and other tribunals.
This move also comes as Russia in a retaliatory move expelled a group of diplomats yesterday.
Russia’s foreign ministry says Moscow has expelled 24 Italian and 27 Spanish diplomats in tit-for-tat responses to the expulsion of Russian envoys over the war in Ukraine.
The ministry said in a statement that 27 employees of the Spanish embassy in Moscow and the Spanish consulate general in Saint Petersburg “have been declared persona non grata”, while ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian news agencies that 24 Italian diplomats had also been ordered to leave the country.
Spain said in April that it would expel some 25 Russian diplomats and embassy staff from Madrid, joining other European Union countries that have ordered Russian officials to leave.
