This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
A UN report has found that Russian forces were responsible for the “vast majority” of human rights violations, including war crimes, in four regions of Ukraine during the early weeks of the war.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine documented events in Ukraine’s northern Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions in late February and March 2022.
The commission’s report on October 18 found that Russian forces indiscriminately shelled areas they were trying to capture and attacked civilians trying to flee.
The commission “found reasonable grounds to conclude that an array of war crimes, violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have been committed in Ukraine,” the UN Human Rights Council said in a news release.
“The impact of these violations on the civilian population in Ukraine is immense. The loss of lives is in the thousands. The destruction of infrastructure is devastating,” commission Chairman Erik Mose said in the news release.
The European Union and human rights organizations have already accused Russian forces of committing human rights violations in Bucha, a town northeast of Kyiv, in early March.
Ukrainian forces that recaptured Bucha and other areas near Kyiv found scores of bodies in the streets and mass burial sites of people killed under Russian occupation.
According to the commission’s findings, family members who lost loved ones have expressed a strong desire for justice to be served. A man whose stepson was killed in Bucha, for example, told the commission he wants the guilty parties to be put on trial so that the truth comes out.
The commission documented patterns of summary executions, unlawful confinement, torture, ill-treatment, rape, and other sexual violence committed in areas occupied by Russian troops across the four regions covered by the report, the Human Rights Council said.
The four regions have been recaptured by Ukraine since the time period covered in the report.
While Russian armed forces were responsible for “the vast majority of the violations identified, Ukrainian forces have also committed international humanitarian law violations in some cases, including two incidents that qualify as war crimes,” the Human Rights Council said.
Kyiv has said it will punish abuses committed by its own forces but believes the number of such incidents is small.
Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians despite ample evidence that it has indiscriminately bombarded villages, towns, and cities, killing scores of people.
