Human Rights Watch: Russia commited apparent war crimes

One of the leading non-governmental organizations in the human rights field published its report, which indicated that military forces had committed laws-of-war violations against civilians in occupied areas of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine.

Rubryka reports referring to the website of the organization.

These include a case of repeated rape; two cases of summary execution, one of six men, the other of one man; and other cases of unlawful violence and threats against civilians between February 27 and March 14, 2022. Soldiers were also implicated in looting civilian property, including food, clothing, and firewood. Those who carried out these abuses are responsible for war crimes.

"The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Rape, murder, and other violent acts against people in the Russian forces' custody should be investigated as war crimes."

The report said that on March 4, Russian troops in Bucha captured five men and executed one of them. The witness told the organization that the soldiers forced five men to kneel on the side of the road, put on T-shirts and shot one of the men in the back of the head.

On March 6, in the village of Vorzel, occupiers threw a smoke grenade into a basement, killing a woman and a 14-year-old child as they left the basement. Human Rights Watch was provided by a man who was in the same basement with a woman.

A woman told Human Rights Watch that a Russian soldier had repeatedly raped her in a school in the Kharkiv region where she and her family had been sheltering on March 13. She said that he beat her and cut her face, neck, and hair with a knife. The next day the woman fled to Kharkiv, where she was able to get medical treatment and other services.