RUSSIAN WAR CRIMES AND HUMAN RIGHT VIOLATIONS IN THE WAR AGAINST UKRAINE
Sources: Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Office of the Prosecutor General, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, State Emergency Service, National Police, relevant city and town councils and regional state administrations
Summary update as of April 10, 2023
The use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians is a crime against humanity and a violation of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.
By killing civilians, the aggressor’s forces continue to commit crimes against humanity as defined by the Statute of the International Military Tribunal and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, cynically disregarding all the requirements of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. According to these norms, deliberate attacks on civilians who are not directly involved in hostilities are equated to war crimes. The taking of civilian hostages is a direct violation of Articles 3 and 34 of the Geneva Convention with regard to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
As of April 10, 2023, since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 468 children were killed and more than 947 children have been injured. Due to the active hostilities in affected regions, there is no possibility to inspect the areas of shelling and destruction.
In Ukraine, at least 15 civilians were killed and 51 more were injured by Russian military over the period of April 06-09, as a result of Russian aggression. Information is based on the data of the regional military administrations.
Donetsk and Luhansk Region
On April 8, a 15-year-old boy was wounded as a result of Russian shelling in Toretsk, Donetsk region.
On April 9, the Russian invaders wounded 4 residents of the Donetsk region. This was announced by the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
During the day, the police of Donetsk region recorded 25 war crimes committed by the Russian Federation against the civilian population. As a result of enemy aggression, 13 settlements of the region were affected. The enemy bombarded civilian cities with aircraft, S-300 SAMs, “Grad”, “Smerch”MLRSs, tube artillery, and mortars. 46 civilian objects were destroyed and damaged – 17 residential buildings, pharmacies, a trade pavilion, administrative buildings, a cemetery, agricultural machinery, garages, cars.
On April 10, a high-rise building was destroyed in Avdiivka as a result of another airstrike by Russian troops.
In the Luhansk region, losses from the war crimes of the Russian occupiers against the environment since February 24, 2022 amounted to more than 475 billion hryvnias. Such calculations were carried out by the State Environmental Inspection in Luhansk region. The reason was the partial destruction of the Luhansk region’s forest fund on an area of more than 26,000 hectares. The total amount of damage from the destruction of the forest fund is more than 180 billion hryvnias.
Kharkiv and Region
During the day from April 9 to 10, 13 settlements of the Kharkiv region were hit by enemy shelling. The General Staff of the Armed Forces informs about this. The enemy attacked the civilian infrastructure of populated areas with MLRSs. This led to the destruction of civil infrastructure in Kupiansk, as well as damage to residential buildings.
Kherson and Region
On April 7, as a result of shelling by the enemy in the village of Stanislav, Kherson region, a private house was damaged, as a result of which a woman and her two minor children, aged 3 and 10, received injuries of varying degrees.
Also, at night, a man was killed and an elderly woman was wounded by artillery shelling in Beryslav district. Residential buildings and farm buildings were damaged.
On the morning of April 10, 2023, the Russian military once again shelled Kherson. This is reported by the Prosecutor General’s Office. As a result of shelling, an architectural monument of local importance – the building of the art museum, as well as the administrative building of the district council and the building of the regional cardiology center – was damaged in the middle of the city.
Mykolaiv and Region
On April 7, the Russian army shelled the town of Ochakiv with cluster and incendiary ammunition. The shells hit residential buildings, shops, and the city’s civilian infrastructure. Two townspeople received mine-explosive injuries and shrapnel wounds, one of them is in serious condition.
Zaporizhzhia and Region
On April 10, the Russian army carried out another air strike on the front-line cities of the Zaporizhzhia region – Huliaipole and Orikhiv. In Orikhiv, the territory of the bread factory was destroyed. The enemy also targeted the territory of the farm.
On April 9, the Russian military from the S-300 SAM launched two missile strikes on Zaporizhzhia. A man and an 11-year-old child died under rubble as a result of a projectile hitting a private house where a family lived. The woman was injured and was hospitalized. The shelling also caused a fire. More than 10 private residential buildings, outbuildings and cars were partially destroyed by the blast wave and projectile fragments. Windows were also blown out of local homes, and roofs were damaged.
On April 8, the Russian military attacked the cities of Orikhiv and Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region with aerial bombs. Two men were injured. As a result of the shelling, farm buildings and private residential buildings were damaged, in which windows were blown out by the shock wave. The premises of the enterprise, as well as the adjacent territory, were partially destroyed.
On April 9, Russian terrorists carried out an airstrike on the community in Zaporizhzhia: the school building was destroyed, and three private houses were damaged. This is reported by the State Emergency Service in the Zaporizhzhia region.
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