New reports of murder and other abuse of Ukrainian civilians by Russian Federation (RF) troops surfaced on Tuesday, April 5, as more villages and towns in north Ukraine emerged from occupation.
Dmitro Zhyvytsky, head of the Sumy regional defense command, said in a statement that Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) liberating the town Konotop found the corpses of three civilians bearing clear signs of torture.
Police investigators are on the scene collecting evidence to support possible war crimes charges, he said. UAF troops and law enforcers have found other bodies in Konotop streets and private homes, but it is not yet clear whether the victims died from combat or were executed, Zhyvytsky said.
Aside from killed and murdered civilians, an unknown number of RF soldier remains are in buildings and fields in and around Konotop, and constitute a serious public health hazard, Zhyvytsky said. He claimed RF troops, in sharp contrast to the UAF, often do not attempt to recover their dead. UAF troops broke an RF siege of Konotop late last week.
Zhyvytsky’s remarks came one day after President Volodymyr Zelensky led hundreds of local and international journalists to the recently-liberated town Bucha. Searchers there recovered more than 300 civilian corpses, some with bound hands and gunshot wounds to the head. At least 280 civilian bodies were uncovered in a mass grave. RF forces left the town on Friday.
A television report produced by the regional administration of Chernihiv, another region recently abandoned by the RF army, said that RF troops in the village Lukashova robbed houses and conducted mock executions of local residents. One man, identified as Ihor, said RF troops during their three week occupation of Lukashova village led him outside to be executed four times, only to fire into a wall.
Other interviewees told of RF troops kidnapping villagers, including young women, whose location remains unknown.
The report showed images of ammunition boxes, cargo trucks and expended anti-tank rounds and cassette-type artillery shells next to the village church. Local e residents claimed the RF troops used the church grounds as an ammunition dump, and parked their combat vehicles next to civilian-occupied homes, to prevent UAF forces from firing on them.
The KP was not able to confirm the TV report’s allegations.
If true, the RF soldier’s actions described in the local television report, and by interviewees, would likely constitute strong evidence of war crimes.
Ukrainian officials led by the country’s president have repeatedly called on western nations to impose maximum sanctions possible on the RF, and to provide Ukraine all the heavy weapons it needs, to push the Kremlin’s forces back into Russia, or more Ukrainian civilians will die at the hands of RF soldiers.
Most NATO states have provided Ukraine assistance but some, led by France and Germany, have balked at ending purchases of RF natural gas or major arms transfers to Ukraine.
In the southern city Mykolaiv, on Tuesday, regional defense commander Vitaly Kim said that RF artillerymen on Monday used anti-personnel cluster munitions – a weapon banned by the Geneva Convention – to bombard a city bus stop, killing nine and injuring 61 civilians.
The death count is likely to increase because some of the injured are in critical condition, Kim said in a statement.
“There is no logic in what they (RF forces) are doing. This is the center of a city, people are going about their business, and RF occupants are firing rocket artillery at innocent people. They (RF commander) have brains like shrimp. I understand they want to cause panic, to terrorize (civilians),” Kim said.
