The Russian Investigative Committee says it has provided the International Criminal Court (ICC) with its files on alleged crimes committed during the 2008 armed conflict in South Ossetia.
Though Russia has not joined the ICC, Moscow said on January 29 that it would cooperate with The Hague-based court's investigation and urged the court to interview people affected by alleged crimes in South Ossetia.
The ICC announced this week that it will probe allegations of war crimes committed by both sides during Russia's brief war with Georgia over the breakaway region.
ICC prosecutors have cited evidence that both Georgian and South Ossetian forces attacked peacekeepers.
They also have cited evidence that up to 113 ethnic Georgian civilians were killed and up to 18,500 uprooted from their homes as part of a "forcible displacement campaign" by Russian and South Ossetian forces.
More than 1,000 people were killed during the five-day war.
Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said the committee investigated alleged crimes committed by the Georgian military, which was sent into South Ossetia by then-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and provided over 30 volumes of documents to the ICC.
