You're reading: Amnesty International confirms civilian murders, war crimes by Russia troops

Evidence that Russian Federation (RF) troops murdered defenseless civilians in Kyiv’s northern suburbs is sufficiently detailed and conclusive to prosecute soldiers responsible and their commanders for war crimes, according to a review made public late on Thursday, April 8, by the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International (AI).

The report said Amnesty investigators interviewed more than 20 people from villages and towns close to Kyiv, several of whom had witnessed or had direct knowledge of violence committed by Russian army service members.
The eyewitnesses told Amnesty investigators of deliberate killings, unlawful violence, and widespread intimidation by Russian troops against unarmed civilians across the Kyiv region. A senior AI official said the agency had documented incidents shown a pattern of violence and terror carried out by RF troops in occupied regions in Ukaine’s Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

“Testimonies shows that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, in a statement.

Amnesty-documented civilian murders in villages north of Kyiv, and profiled in the report included the 03 Mar. shooting of a couple living in the town Vorzel’ in front of their daughter, the 03 Mar. shooting of Hostomel Mayor Yuriy Prylypko as he was delivering food and medicine to local residents, the 09 Mar. shooting of a father in Bohdanivka in front of his family, and the 13 Mar. kidnapping and murder of the son of local resident in Hostomel.

Amnesty investigators also collected accounts of rape confirmed by multiple witnesses, the report said.
The Amnesty International report came as Ukrainian government officials and workers continued the daunting job of clearing up damage and bringing electricity, heating and water supplies back on line in towns and villages devastated by RF occupation, but liberated by Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) units in recent weeks.
Ukrainian officials and independent media since Saturday have made public devastating reports and images confirming RF troops in the Kyiv region village Bucha killed as many as 300 civilians, in some cases by execution.

President Volodymyr Zelensky in a late Thursday evening national address warned that searchers clearing smashed buildings in the heavily-fought over Kyiv region village Borodyanka are likely to find civilian dead “that will be much more horrible, than in Bucha.”

Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, in an early Friday morning statement said emergency response crews working in Borodyanaka had, after sifting through the debris of just two buildings, uncovered 26 civilian corpses. She did give details on the probable cause of their deaths.

In Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region, a territory long heavily-occupied by RF troops, but in recent days seeing UAF liberation of villages even near the RF border, officials said they had uncovered more evidence of civilian murders, possibly also by Russian soldiers.

A Friday morning statement from the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office said advancing UAF troops entering the village Husarovka, which had been occupied by RF forces for almost a month, found the corpses of three local residents in a house courtyard. The house had been ransacked and the victims burned almost beyond recognition by car tires set fire on their corpses, the report said.

In contrast to international human rights protection groups like Amnesty International, Ukrainian officials and law enforcers make little distinction between civilian death caused by RF soldiers engaged in intimidation or robbery in an occupied village, and death caused by RF long-range fires clearly targeting unarmed civilians.

According to a Friday morning statement from the Zaporizhia defense command, RF forces committed clear war crimes on Thursday by firing Grad artillery rockets at a boat ferrying civilian refugees attempting to escape fighting, by crossing the Kakhova reservoir by water near the village Pervomaika.

RF gunners per the report observed the boat make six round trips carrying civilians to safety, before opening fire on the boat. Of the fourteen persons aboard, two adults and one child were killed, seven were hospitalized, and two remain missing, the statement said.