A preliminary probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) suggests that Ukraine's security forces used "excessive and indiscriminate" force in the 2014 EuroMaidan protests but are not guilty of crimes against humanity.
ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a report released on November 12 that The Hague-based organization had opened a tentative investigation into the conflict.
The months-long pro-Western uprising began in November 2013 on Kyiv's Maidan Square and led to the toppling of Viktor Yanukovych's pro-Russian government and the deaths of some 100 people, mostly protesters.
Bensouda said that "While these considerations tend to indicate that alleged crimes do not amount to crimes against humanity," she added that the ICC did find that "serious human rights abuses did occur" at Independence Square.
Bensouda said that although the attacks on the protesters constituted an "attack directed against a civilian population," there was "limited information...to support a conclusion that...it was either widespread or systematic."
She said the ICC's preliminary probe was continuing in the Russia-annexed Crimea and eastern Donbas region, where more than 7,900 people have been killed in fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine's parliament has accepted the ICC's jurisdiction to probe crimes committed on its territory from November 2013 onward.
