Agents of the French gendarmerie have arrived in Lviv in western Ukraine to assist their Ukrainian counterparts in the “investigations of war crimes committed around Kyiv,” the French ambassador to Ukraine, Etienne de Ponsan, announced Monday.
De Ponsan wrote on Twitter that this was the “first” foreign investigators unit that “provides such assistance.”
“We are proud to welcome in Lviv the technical and scientific gendarmerie detachment who came to assist their comrades in the investigations into the war crimes committed around Kyiv,” he added.
The ambassador confirmed that the French investigators will begin their work on Tuesday, stressing France’s “solidarity” with Ukraine.
The tweet, which was also translated into Ukrainian, was attached by the ambassador with the French and Ukrainian flags.
In Paris, the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Justice announced in a joint statement that “a technical team from the Ministry of the Interior, tasked with providing its expertise in identifying and collecting evidence to the Ukrainian authorities, arrived this morning in Ukraine.”
“In agreement with the Ukrainian authorities, the team can also contribute to the investigation of the International Criminal Court,” the statement added.
The French ambassador attached his tweet with a picture in which about 15 gendarmes – including a woman – appeared in blue uniforms, behind a white truck belonging to the Criminal Research Institute of the gendarmerie, on which was written a “mobile DNA laboratory”.
In their joint statement, the three French ministries said that these gendarmes are “experts in crime scenes and identifying victims.”
Also among this team are two forensic doctors “who will be able to conduct a series of examinations and identify the identities of bodies,” according to the statement.
Moscow was quick to criticize the French initiative.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that “it is not possible to rely on an impartial investigation” by this French gendarmerie unit due to the “bias of these specialists”.
The ministry went further, expressing its fear that these French investigators would try to “hide the numerous war crimes” that Moscow accuses of the Ukrainian forces and to “fabricate accusations against the Russian forces.”