Damage to environment, civilian property: France sends two more teams of criminalists to Ukraine

This is stated in a joint communiqué of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior and Overseas Affairs of France, published on Tuesday by the French Embassy in Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.

"On June 10 and 11, France sent two teams from the French Ministry of the Interior and Overseas Territories to Ukraine, one consisting of investigators and the other of forensic experts... In response to Ukraine's request for assistance from France, the first team will help the Ukrainian authorities investigate crimes that have caused serious and lasting damage to the environment since the beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine," the document says.

The group includes gendarmes from the Central Directorate for Combating Crimes against the Environment and Public Health (OCLAESP) and an expert from the Institute of Criminal Research of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN).

France will also deploy a technical and forensic police mission under the auspices of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the communiqué says.

Drawing on IRCGN's experience, this mission will collect evidence of civilian property damage and document it using three-dimensional digital models. The information gathered will facilitate the ICC investigation and proceedings in Ukrainian courts.

The document notes that these two new missions are a continuation of five previous missions of the French Ministry of the Interior and Overseas Territories to Ukraine, two of which were long-term. These missions included investigating damage to infrastructure, identifying victims in order to return their bodies to their families, investigating causes of death, and modeling crime scenes.

"France reiterates its strong condemnation of Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine. True to its long-standing commitment, France will continue to support the vital work of the Ukrainian and international criminal justice systems in the fight against impunity for all crimes committed in Ukraine," the French Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior assured.

As reported, at night on June 6, the Russian army blew up the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. Rescue operations and measures to overcome the consequences of this crime are ongoing in the Kherson region. The situation in the temporarily occupied territories of the region remains dramatic, as the occupation forces do not allow Ukrainian rescuers to enter the flooded areas.

Law enforcement officers have opened an investigation into the occupiers' explosion of the Kakhovka HPP under the article "ecocide." Ukrhydroenergo stated that Kakhovka HPP was completely destroyed and cannot be restored.