Russia broke international humanitarian law by deliberately targeting civilians during its invasion of Ukraine, and those who ordered attacks on a maternity hospital and theater in the besieged city of Mariupol, which have become a shelter, committed war crimes, Experts from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have noted an investigative report released on Wednesday.
The Vienna-based security agency broadly blamed Russia targets hospitals, schools, residential buildings and water supply facilities in its military operations, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries.
“Overall, the report documents the catalog of inhumanity being committed by Russian forces in Ukraine,” said Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to the OSCE, in a speech on Wednesday. “This includes evidence of direct attacks on civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, executions, looting and forced deportations of civilians to Russia.”
The report concluded that the airstrike that destroyed a Mariupol maternity hospital was a Russian attack. “According to Russian statements, the attack must have been premeditated,” said the March 9 report on the March 9 attack on the Mariupol Maternity Hospital and Children’s Hospital. “No effective warning was issued and no deadline was set. This attack therefore constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law and those responsible committed a war crime.”
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While the Russian government claimed the hospital was used for military purposes, Carpenter said: “The mission categorically denied these allegations.” The OSCE experts did not travel to Ukraine, but instead sorted through evidence from numerous sources, including open-source Material and reports from human rights and non-profit groups.
The OSCE report also noted that the attack on the Mariupol Drama Theatre, where hundreds of civilians took refuge while the building was reduced to rubble, “was most likely a egregious violation of international humanitarian law and those who ordered it or have committed a war crime.”
Overall, the investigation “found clear patterns of violations of international humanitarian law by Russian forces in the conduct of hostilities,” the report said. However, it added that while the report “contributed to an initial gathering and analysis of evidence, more detailed investigations are needed, particularly with regard to establishing individual criminal responsibility for war crimes”.
The report traced alleged abuses from February 24, the day of the Russian invasion, to April 1. It did not include a rocket attack last week on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that killed over 50 people, including children, nor atrocities recently reported in Bucha, a suburb of the capital Kyiv.
The 110-page report also found “credible evidence to suggest that such violations of even the most basic human rights…were being committed, mainly in the areas under effective Russian control.”
The OSCE began its investigation last month after most of its member states, including Ukraine, voted to conduct a fact-finding mission. The United States is part of the 57-strong body — as are Russia and its ally Belarus. Russia and Belarus were among a dozen countries that did not vote for the review and are yet to publicly comment on the report.
The OSCE inquiry was prompted by a vote on the “Moscow Mechanism,” named after a 1991 conference in the Russian capital, which allows member states to send independent experts on missions to another member state to investigate “human rights issues.” and democracy,” the OSCE said.
Ukrainian officials said hundreds of civilians were summarily executed in Bucha and had evidence of torture, dismemberment and shooting of people at close range. The alleged events in Bucha, noted as Ukraine was retaking more territory and Russia’s forces beginning to move from areas near Kyiv to the east and south of the country, led to Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council. Russia has claimed that such killings are “staged” or “fake”.
Noting that the events in Bucha deserve “a serious international investigation on the ground with forensic experts,” the OSCE report said, “evidence points to a serious war crime and crime against humanity committed by Russian forces.” ” in the northwestern city of Kyiv.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan referred to Ukraine as a “crime scene” during a visit to Bucha on Wednesday as his team collected evidence.
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“This report is only the first of what is likely to be many,” said the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to the OSCE, Neil Bush. “We, as an international community, must hold accountable those responsible for the atrocities committed in Ukraine, including military commanders and others in the Putin regime.”
The report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights also states that women and children are particularly hard hit by Russia’s abuses. The panel also noted Ukraine’s role in allegations of abuse and treatment of prisoners of war. “However, the violations committed by the Russian Federation are far greater in nature and scope,” it said.
President Biden on Tuesday called the killings in Ukraine a sign that Russia was committing “genocide,” a term US officials had previously avoided. He later told reporters he used the word in his speech on purpose, but added that he would “let the lawyers decide internationally whether it qualifies or not.” But he said, “It certainly feels that way to me.”
President Biden spoke about why he called the April 12 war in Ukraine a “genocide.” “It sure feels like it to me,” he said. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post)
The war in Ukraine has been going on for more than seven weeks, with 1,892 people killed and 2,558 injured, according to an incomplete United Nations count. Ukrainian officials said the actual civilian death toll was many thousands higher. Around 4.6 million people have fled the country as refugees.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called the war a “tragedy” but insisted Russia had “no choice” but to invade its western neighbor. He told reporters the “special military operation” in Ukraine is proceeding as planned and will continue until its objectives are met.
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The Moscow Mechanism has previously been used by the OSCE nine times, first in 1992 in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was last used in Belarus in 2020, when 17 member states called for an investigation into alleged human rights violations there.
The United States, Germany, Britain and France were among the member states that invoked the mechanism last month. In early April, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for expelling Russia from the OSCE for its “unjustified aggression”.