[JURIST] Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin [official website] on Friday stated that his nation has requested an expansion of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] investigation in Ukraine to include recent conflicts in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The nation already granted [JURIST report] the ICC permission to investigate crimes on its territory from November 21, 2013, to February 22, 2014, the period leading up to the fall of former president Viktor Yanukovich [BBC profile]. Ukraine now requests that the ICC investigate to the furthest reaches of its mandate [text, PDF], including looking into allegations that Russia funded pro-separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine soon after Russia annexed Crimea [JURIST backgrounder] in March 2014. Those conflicts were nominally brought to an end in February of this year with the Minsk ceasefire [BBC report], but conflict still remains [Forbes report]. Earlier this week, about 300 US paratroopers arrived in Ukraine to help train the nation’s forces to fight pro-Russian rebels, assistance Russia has condemned as “destabilizing.” Around 6,000 people have been killed and another 15,000 wounded in the ongoing conflict.

The crisis between Russia and eastern Ukraine has intensified over the past few months with little sign of a true resolution in sight. Earlier this month Amnesty International announced that it has evidence showing that Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine killed several captured government soldiers [JURIST report], a violation of international humanitarian law. Also this month Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced [JURIST report] that his government would no longer object to allowing a referendum that could grant greater autonomy to the eastern regions of the country controlled by Russian-backed rebels. In March Human Rights Watch said that the Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed rebel forces consistently used cluster munitions [JURIST report] in eastern Ukraine in early 2015, killing close to 13 civilians. Last October AI documented extra-judicial killings [JURIST report] by both pro-Russian separatists and pro-Keiv forces in eastern Ukraine, though the advocacy group cautioned that the actual number of deaths might not be an accurate figure as reported by the Russian media.