Russian Federation (RF) units deployed in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region opened fire on volunteer-driven vehicles carrying humanitarian aid on March 31, killing as many as ten staffers, volunteer organizers and major media said on Friday.
Anton Stenenko, a physics researcher working with civilian volunteer groups, in a Facebook post said he witnessed RF soldiers use small arms and vehicle weapons to shoot up civilian cars driven by volunteers at two locations on roads to Kyiv’s north.
He said that RF forces opened up on at least two separate volunteer vehicle columns. Several of the automobiles were completely burned, reports said.
Stenenko said “several” volunteers were killed and “several” were injured. He posted a photograph showing what appeared to be ten corpses in body bags, but it was not clear if the remains were linked to the shootings.
MP Olha Stefanyshina in a public statement confirmed the Chernihiv ambushes took place, and said that a RF shell killed her partner Bohdan, a member of one of the volunteer teams.
The Ukrainska Pravda news magazine on Friday, April 1, likewise confirmed the shootings, and identified one of the victims as Anastasia Tagirova, a volunteer enrolled as a student Kyiv’s National Pedagogical Dragomanov University.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly alleged RF troops fire on unarmed Ukrainian civilians on a regular basis and are practically never held responsible. Alleged reasons for the shootings have ranged from fear of partisan attack to poor discipline, sloppy rules of engagement, intoxication, and robbery.
A Friday statement by Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights, said that in the recently-liberated Kharkiv region village Mala Rohan’, Ukrainian law enforcers have gathered substantial evidence that RF troops operating checkpoints in the vicinity fired on more than 20 civilian automobiles during their occupation. RF forces first appeared near Mala Rohan’ and blocked roads on Feb. 27. UAF units forced them out of the village on Thursday, she said.
