Two French volunteers were killed in southern Ukraine during a Russian bombardment on Thursday, and Paris condemned Moscow’s act of “barbarism”. The anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office is to start an investigation into the incident, AFP reports.

Two victims were killed in a strike on Berislav, a small town located on the northern bank of the Dnipro River, near the front line, the French Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

According to the Quai d’Orsay, three other French citizens were also injured in the incident.

The governor of the Kherson region (south), where Beryslav is located, Oleksandr Prokudin, reported on Thursday evening that two French volunteers were killed, three were wounded, and a Ukrainian was wounded during the shelling.

On Friday evening, the anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office (Pnat), contacted by AFP, said it had opened an investigation into the death of two French volunteers.

An investigation has been opened for war crimes and intentionally creating a threat to the life of a person protected by international humanitarian law.

Commissioned by gendarmes from the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity (OCLCH), this is the tenth procedure opened by PNAT since the beginning of the conflict in February 2022.

On Friday, France’s new foreign minister, Stéphane Sejournay, told X that they were indeed “humanitarians”. “Two French humanitarian workers paid with their lives for their devotion to Ukrainians. Three wounded,” Sejourne wrote, condemning “Russian barbarism.”

“Two French humanitarian workers were killed in Ukraine during a Russian strike,” Emmanuel Macron X reacted at the time. “A cowardly and disgusting act,” said the French president, whose “solidarity is with all the volunteers who helped the population.” “.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, also took to social media to honor the memory of two “brave” French volunteers who “helped people”, condemning “Russian terror”, which does not take into account the “nationality of the victims”.