Kateryna Chernoval03:32, 08.12.22
The organization has so far documented the violent deaths of 441 civilians.
The UN published a report on the mass murders of civilians of Ukraine by the Russian occupiers. Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said that since the full-scale invasion of Russia on February 24, 2022, the Russian military has executed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians.
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the report of the Monitoring Mission describes in detail how Russian troops killed civilians in Ukrainian cities and villages in the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions of Ukraine between February 24 and April 6, 2022.
“There are strong indications that the mass executions documented in this report may constitute a war crime of premeditated murder,” Bogner stressed.
Thus, in the town of Bucha near Kyiv, which was under the control of Russian troops from March 5 to 30, the Mission documented the killing of 73 civilians. It is noted that among the killed were 54 men, 16 women, 2 boys and 1 girl. Another 105 alleged murders are in the process of being confirmed.
“The report states that the UN has so far documented the violent deaths of 441 civilians (341 men, 72 women, 20 boys and 8 girls) in three regions in just the first 6 weeks of the Russian invasion,” the report states.
The Organization warned that the actual figures are likely to be much higher, as work continues to confirm another 198 murders that took place in the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions of Ukraine during their occupation by Russian forces.
In addition, there are reports of the execution of Ukrainians in places of illegal detention during the occupation of the regions. Civilians were targeted by the Russians on the roads while moving within or between populated areas, including when trying to get out of the war zone.
“Russian soldiers took civilians to improvised places of detention and then executed them in captivity. The bodies of many victims were found with their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head,” Bogner added.
At the same time, the UN report emphasized that among all the victims executed by the occupiers, 88% were men and boys.
Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine
Beth Van Schaak, US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, said there is overwhelming evidence that Russian occupation forces are committing systematic war crimes in every region of Ukraine under their control.
These war crimes include deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, ill-treatment of civilians and prisoners of war and attempts to cover up these crimes, reports of executions, torture and sexual violence.
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized that Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure are a war crime. He believes that the international community should initiate legal proceedings against Russian President Vladimir Putin and charge him with war crimes against the background of attacks on the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine.
(C)UNIAN 2022
Gen Lloyd Austin: “we won’t be dragged into Putin’s war.”
He might as well have said also: “we expect Ukraine to win quickly, using only 20 short range HIMARS against a gargantuan fascist power that has unlimited financial and human resources.”
It’s just not good enough. It’s up to Poland, Britain and the US; being the only countries (apart from the little Baltics) decent enough to provide substantial help, to step up their game by a factor of 400%.
Now that the UN has documented many cases of Moskali war crimes, isn’t it time to suspend their veto?! It is time for the UN to show the world they are not just an accounting firm and money pit.
I’ve given up hope that the UN will find its way. It had over 9 months to act. And, despite thousands of crimes and atrocities committed by mafia land, nothing concrete has happened to the shithole. Not to mention that the war itself is a war crime. Forty-thousand crimes, fifty-thousand crimes, a million crimes … they’re only numbers. The horrors behind each crime is irrelevant, so it seems. The UN was pretty much useless for decades, and I’m afraid that nothing will happen to change that.