Report details horrific human rights abuses by Russian forces in Ukraine
Mike Brest
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Russian forces’ actions during the war in Ukraine amount to a “litany of violations of international humanitarian law,” according to Human Rights Watch.
Over the course of the 10-month war, Russian troops engaged in a variety of different behaviors that HRW characterizes as possible violations of international, war crimes, and crimes against humanity that include the targeting of civilians, attacks against schools, hospitals, and the country’s energy infrastructure, sexual violence, and the torture and detention of civilians.
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In one of the first and most well-documented instances, Russian forces withdrew from Bucha, north of the capitol of Kyiv, in early April, and Ukrainian officials uncovered horrifying scenes of alleged war crimes. International investigators found torture chambers in a summer camp in Bucha, the location of mass graves and where civilians were found executed. They concluded that Russians likely waterboarded prisoners as they were tied with bed springs leaned up against the wall.
“After Ukrainian troops forced the Russian military’s withdrawal from Bucha … the UN found that at least 70 civilians had been the victims of unlawful killings, including summary executions, which are war crimes,” the HRW report, which was published on Thursday, said. “This pattern of Russian atrocity has been repeated countless times.”
As of mid-November, the U.N. had verified a minimum of 6,700 civilian deaths and more than 10,000 wounded, though the actual counts are likely much higher.
“Russian forces carried out numerous attacks that killed and wounded thousands of civilians,” per the report. “Some of these attacks were unlawful under international humanitarian law, including because they were indiscriminate or disproportionate in their effects on civilians.”
The report also referenced a March 16 strike that hit a theater in Mariupol despite having the word “children” carved into the ground on two sides of the property in Russian.
“In one attack, on March 16, Russian aircraft dropped bombs on the Donetsk Regional Theater in Mariupol, causing the roof and two main walls to collapse. At the time of the attack, hundreds of civilians were sheltering in the theater, which was also a center for the distribution of medicine, food, and water to civilians,” it said. “An investigation by Amnesty International concluded that the strike killed at least a dozen people and likely many more, and seriously injured many others.”
“This alert was meant to protect the civilians, including many children, sheltering inside. Instead, it seemed only to serve as an inducement for Russian forces whose bombs destroyed the building and killed at least a dozen, and likely more, of its occupants,” the report continued, also mentioning a June 27 strike at a shopping mall in central Ukraine that killed at least 18 civilians.
Russian forces, back in October, opted for a new strategy in the war — this time deciding to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of the winter. The repeated targeting of Ukraine’s electrical grid put a significant strain on it, and has oftentimes resulted in blackouts, no heat, and no running water for millions of civilians.
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“Inflicting civilian suffering, such as the repeated strikes on the energy infrastructure that Ukrainians depend on for electricity, water, and heat, seems to be a central part of the Kremlin’s strategy.”