The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday accused the Russian army of a “war crime” in the rocket attack on the Kramatorsk train station in eastern Ukraine in April 2022 that killed 60 civilians attempting to flee the region.
“The evidence clearly indicates that the missile that killed and injured civilians at the Kramatorsk railway station was fired from a Russian-controlled area in eastern Ukraine. This attack constitutes a violation of the laws of war and a flagrant war crime,” writes HRW in the investigation, conducted with visual investigative agency SITU Research.
The NGO adds that it identified the then-Russian-controlled village of Kounié in the Kharkiv region as a “possible site for the attack.”
On April 8, 2022, just before 10:30 a.m., as thousands of civilians rushed out of the region threatened by a major offensive by Russian troops, a Tochka-U missile loaded with cluster bombs hit the Kramatorsk train station, the region’s main evacuation center.
According to the Kramatorsk City Hall report, 61 people were killed and more than 160 injured.
HRW investigated in Kramatorsk from May 14 to 24, 2022, interviewed witnesses and victims of the attack and analyzed “more than 200 photos and videos”. The NGO also traveled to Kounié on January 10 and 11, after its liberation by the Ukrainian army, where they spoke to about fifteen residents.
Moscow has denied being behind the attack and accused Kiev of firing on the station to disrupt evacuations, but HRW says it found “no evidence to support Russian claims”.
“On the contrary, everything indicates that the Russian armed forces fired the Tochka submarine at the Kramatorsk station,” writes the NGO, which says it has since “identified several locations where the Russian armed forces appear to have launched Tochka.” – have deployed submarine missile systems in Ukraine”. the beginning of the war.
According to Human Rights Watch, the most credible is the village of Kounié. Most notably, satellite photos taken in April show “several large rectangular containers” similar in shape, size and color to those of Totchka-U missiles.
According to local residents, in early April there was “significant Russian military activity in and around the village, including the firing of ammunition.”
During its on-site visit, four months after their release, the NGO found fragments of Totchka-U missiles and “several unexploded submunitions” which it believes came from misfires.
“This evidence clearly indicates that at the time of the attack in Kramatorsk, Russian forces had launchers … and Tochka-U missiles around the village of Kunye, and that Russian forces had launched regular attacks during this period,” writes HRW .
“Russia’s attack on the crowded Kramatorsk train station was unlawfully indiscriminate,” concludes HRW, who says the station was not a valid military target and that “Russian commanders and military personnel who ordered and carried out the attack committed a war crime.