Playgrounds, apartment buildings and cemeteries bombed: investigations into possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine suggest Moscow has indiscriminately killed thousands of civilians by using indiscriminately destructive and barbaric weapons far from military targets.
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“People have been killed in their homes and on the streets, in playgrounds and in cemeteries while queuing for humanitarian aid or to buy food and medicine,” Donatella Rovera, a researcher at Amnesty International’s headquarters, said on the sidelines of the publication of an investigative report entitled Anyone Can Die at Any Time. The NGO claims to have evidence of the use of banned bombs in residential areas of Kharkiv.
At the same time, research by the British newspaper The Guardian in collaboration with the NGO Bellingcat, a non-profit online journalist collective dedicated to investigating war crimes, reveals that Russia has allegedly used fragmentation, unguided bombs and dart bombs against civilians.
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Since Russia has not signed any international treaties banning these weapons, their use is not illegal per se. But that doesn’t mean these bombs can be used in any way, recalls Éric Ouellet, a professor of strategic military leadership and decision-making at Canadian Forces College.
“They are not illegal, but they are weapons with a large radius of destruction. If we attack areas where we know there are civilians and no military targets, it’s forbidden,” he adds.
Here’s what you need to know about these weapons.
cluster bombs
“These are shells launched from aircraft or on the ground that open up and release smaller bombs that spread over a large area before hitting the ground. They are often used to destroy infrastructure such as airplane runways,” says Éric Ouellet.
Photo: AFP
A Ukrainian deminer with a Russian shell near the city of Kharkiv.
Since 2008, these bombs have been banned in more than 100 countries under the Convention on Cluster Munitions and Convention on Landmines, not least because almost half of the cluster munitions they release fail to detonate on use.
According to UN estimates, in Laos, where the Americans dropped more than two million bombs during the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1973, there are still almost 80 million duds. They continue to claim hundreds of victims every year.
Amnesty International claims to have multiple pieces of evidence that Moscow used cluster bombs in residential areas of Kharkiv, including duds and eyewitness accounts.
Neither Russia, Ukraine, nor the United States have signed the conventions banning them.
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arrow bombs
“These are bombs that are often used in fields, forests or more open spaces with the aim of killing as many people as possible,” says Éric Ouellet.
Although these bombs are not illegal, Westerners avoid using them because public opinion in several countries regards them as “immoral,” he points out. The fact is that how they work stimulates the imagination.
AFP
An arrow in a Russian grenade found in the Donetsk region in 2014.
Each bowl contains approximately 8000 metal darts of 3 to 4 cm, consisting of a dart and blades that act as fins to stabilize them in flight. After being fired from the barrel of a tank or howitzer, the shell explodes above the ground, hurling the 8000 projectiles forward in the shape of an inverted cone. When the arrows hit a body, the arrow bends and deviates from its original trajectory, and the blades detach to go in an opposite direction, causing a second wound.
Pathologists and coroners conducting autopsies on bodies found in mass graves in towns and villages north of Kyiv found these metal darts embedded in the victims’ heads and chests. Residents of the towns of Irpin and Boutcha also told the Guardian they found them in their gardens or in their cars.
Unguided Bombs
Russia has widely used FAB-250 unguided bombs, which are very inaccurate, to target cities in the Kyiv region, including Boutcha, Hostomel and Borodyanka. They can be dropped up to a height of 12 km.
Photo: AFP
Once again, Éric Ouellet points out that they are not illegal, but that the way Moscow uses them in Ukraine is a problem.
According to investigators from The Guardian and Bellingcat, at least eight civilian buildings in towns north of Kyiv were destroyed by the Russian military with these bombs, causing hundreds of deaths. Moscow had used them extensively in Syria in the past.
− With information from the Guardian