Ukraine: Investigators found Russia committed war crimes by targeting civilians

The latest reportThat Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukrainenoted that attacks on power plants were “once again” on the rise across Ukraine, where temperatures dropped to -21°C last winter.

“The most frightening thing is to fall asleep and not wake up; it felt like torture because of the fear of dying from the cold,” said a 53-year-old man quoted in the report, which also reiterated the serious negative impact of war on elderly people.

“I lay cold and hungry, without medicine, without anything,” said a 74-year-old woman from Kyiv, who like many senior citizens, could not use the stairs and was too afraid to use the elevator, making it impossible to reach safety when there was an air raid warning.

Cold and isolated

“This means they must remain in homes that have no heat, no electricity or water, no access to life-support equipment or essential services,” the report’s authors stressed.

The Russian commanders who ordered the strikes knew full well that the heating facilities they targeted were “indispensable to the civilian population, especially during the winter,” the report noted.

“The Russian authorities have made an official statement regarding further attacks and referred to plans to carry them out. Independent investigators concluded that they committed war crimes by intentionally directing attacks against civilian targets.”

This commission was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2022, shortly after Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory.

For its latest report, the three-member panel relied on reports from 255 people who wintered amid dire conditions in the Dnipro, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia and Zhytomyr regions, as well as Ukrainian authorities, doctors and non-governmental organizations.

Commission also examines Ukrainian armed forces’ attacks on energy infrastructure in Russia and in the occupied territories of Ukraine. But the panel’s investigators – Erik Møse, Pablo de Greiff and Vrinda Grover – were unable to investigate the attack’s impact on Russia as the authorities did. does not allow access or respond to requests for information.

The recruits were traded

The Commission also cited “strong evidence” that Russian authorities recruited trafficked men from 29 countries into the armed forces, in violation of international human rights law.

The recruits have been deployed on the front lines in Ukraine “and given dangerous tasks. Many were killed or disappeared, others surrendered or were captured by the Ukrainian armed forces, thereby obtaining prisoner of war status,” the report noted.

The report highlights how human trafficking occurs using “deception and coercion”, through coordination with agents operating in various countries; and how immediately after arriving, the men were forced to sign contracts in Russian with the Ministry of Defense.

Life signed

The report recounts the testimony of a 35-year-old woman, the wife of a man recruited from the Caribbean, who said: “They took her passport and just told her to sign a contract here, here and here. It was only in Russian. She was really stressed and had no choice.”

This resolution calls for all trafficked persons to be dismissed from the Russian armed forces.

Investigation mandate

That UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine is an independent body mandated by United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, and related crimes in the context of aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Federation. Commission members are not UN staff and they are not paid for their work.