The Russian atrocities in the Kiev suburbs of Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka and Hostomel have caused horror around the world. Human Rights Watch has released new findings on war crimes.
The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch considers it proven that Russian troops committed war crimes in north-eastern Ukraine.
According to their own statements, the human rights activists found evidence of killings, unlawful detention under inhumane conditions, torture and missing persons at 17 locations. “The numerous atrocities committed by Russian troops who occupied parts of north-eastern Ukraine at the start of the war are heinous, unlawful and cruel,” said the organization’s Europe and Central Asia director Giorgi Gogia, according to a statement on the release of a new report. He called for immediate investigations and trials.
Report: Men partly shot at random
A total of 65 survivors, family members and other witnesses were interviewed between April 10 and May 10 for the report. People were shot for possessing working cell phones, old military uniforms or suspected of having been in the Ukrainian military. Before they left, Russian soldiers had killed mostly men, some of them at random. It was even shot at playing children. Those arrested had to endure in a confined space in cold cellars, sometimes without food. Buckets served as toilets. The surviving victims described torture with electric batons and mock executions.
Russia has been waging a war of aggression in Ukraine for almost three months. At the end of March, Russian troops withdrew from the occupied areas north and northeast of the capital Kyiv. Atrocities discovered after the withdrawal in the Kiev suburbs of Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka and Hostomel had caused horror around the world.
The human rights organization Amnesty International had already presented a report on Russian war crimes in early May, documenting more than 40 civilians killed in air raids in Borodyanka and 22 cases of unlawful killings in and near Bucha.
