"Horrible, unlawful and cruel": Serious allegations against Russia
Created: 05/18/2022, 16:45
By: Nail Akkoyun
Human Rights Watch releases a new report on the Ukraine war.
Russia is accused of serious war crimes.
Kyiv – According to a new report by human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), Russian forces have committed war crimes in northeastern Ukraine by torturing and executing civilians.
Accordingly, the Russian troops had decided and carried out 22 executions in parts of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions in a fast-track procedure.
According to HRW, the atrocities took place between the end of February and the end of March.
The human rights organization had previously reported ten executions, which are said to have taken place in Bucha, among other places.
In addition to executions, the report, obtained by British newspaper The Independent, lists nine other extrajudicial killings, six possible kidnappings and seven cases of torture.
The findings are based on research visits to 17 Ukrainian towns and villages and interviews with 65 people between April 10 and May 10.
Moscow continues to deny that Russian soldiers specifically targeted Ukrainian civilians - despite ample evidence to the contrary.
Soldiers from the Chechen volunteer battalion Achmat clear a residential area in Ukraine.
(symbol photo) © Alexander Reka/Imago Images
Ukraine: 45-year-old executed for wearing Ukrainian service coat
One of those affected is 45-year-old Ihor Savran.
His death is among 22 treated as executions by HRW.
His mother, Anastasia Andriivna, told the human rights organization that Savran was taken from her home in a village northwest of Kyiv by Russian forces on March 19, after they had earlier discovered his 1993 Ukrainian National Guard service coat.
Less than two weeks later, Andriivna discovered her son's body – his sneakers sticking out of a barn door less than 100 meters from her house.
"He had been shot in the ear and there was blood all over his face.
His best friend lay beside him;
he too had been shot.
His legs were bent in an unnatural position," she said.
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"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 Giorgi Gogia, HRW Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia.
The attacks on civilians "are flagrant war crimes that should be promptly and impartially investigated and appropriately prosecuted," he said.
Human Rights Watch also accused the Kremlin of beatings, electric shocks and mock executions of detainees.
The organization added that hundreds of civilians are said to be being held in basements in inhumane conditions, with 10 elderly people reported to have died in a basement in Yahidne, a village south of Chernihiv.
The new HRW report on Russian atrocities was released on Friday (May 13) - the same day a 21-year-old Russian soldier was charged with war crimes in Kyiv.
He is said to have murdered a 62-year-old in northeastern Sumy shortly after Russia invaded the neighboring country on February 24 and started the Ukraine war.
(nak)