News “evidence” war crimes committed under the occupation of Russian forces in the kyiv region (Ukraine), during the first months of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. A new report published monday january 30 of the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) in collaboration with the Ukrainian NGO Truth Hounds (link in English) corroborates previous investigations and reveals new war crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians in the cities of Motyzhyn, Kopyliv and Severynivka.
>> War in Ukraine: follow the situation in our live
For IPHR, an NGO based in Belgium and documenting war crimes in Ukraine, there is “enough evidence” to “conclude” that the Russian forces committed in these cities “intentional attacks against civilians”, of the “deliberate murders” as well as acts of “torture”. The report adds that “attacks by civilian forces in the oblast (region) of Kyiv may constitute crimes against humanity, in the form of torture and murder”.
The investigation, based on testimonies from relatives of the victims and other witnesses, details in parallel some of the conditions of the Russian occupation in this area located about fifty kilometers from the Ukrainian capital. In Kopyliv, for example, “Russian soldiers were not allowing civilians trying to evacuate their children to leave the village. They refused to help them find baby food and refused permission to bury a resident they had killed” , says the report.
Civilians fleeing the occupation shot dead
The IPHR report comes back in particular to an attack by Russian forces on March 3, 2022, against a family fleeing the occupied zone by car. Parents and their two daughters, aged 9 and 14, were near Motyzhyn, not far from the highway linking kyiv to Zhytomyr, when their two vehicles were targeted by Russian fire, according to the NGO. Both adults were killed in the attack, and then one of the two girls, the youngest, was taken by Russian forces to the home of a Kopyliv resident. According to the child’s account, his mother’s face was disfigured by the shots, and his older sister, who was wounded in the leg, was taken away by other Russian soldiers. His whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
The Kopyliv resident who took in the little sister has beensubmitted to the IPHR, confirming these facts. According to his testimonytheir grandfather was able to pick up the child survivor at the beginning of April, and bury the bodies of the parents “remained on the road after the attack”. He thus has observed gunshot wounds on their bodies.
In Motyzhyn, the murder of an elderly woman was also documented by the team of IPHR and Truth Hounds. She was shot on March 19 as Russian forces fired into the courtyards and gardens of a street in Motyzhyn, according to the victim’s neighbor’s account. The investigation also reports that a civilian from Kopyliv was killed after going missing on March 18. He had been seen one last time on a bicycle. According to the testimony of his widow collected for this report, his body was found on April 8 by the police in Kalynivka, some 40 kilometers from Kopyliv. “When I saw him, he was missing half of his head and his body was burned. I only recognized him by the deformation of his chest”, testified the widow.
Residents tortured and executed
Throughout the report, the IPHR also recounts the murder of two Ukrainians who were members of an improvised “territorial defense force” in Severynivka. This “strength” “was more akin to a form of ‘neighborhood watch'”, says the NGO. “They were not related to the Ukrainian military forces, had no weapons or uniforms and did not take part in hostilities. Their sole purpose was to prevent looting in the village.”
One of the civilians participating in this “force” was captured, tortured and killed by Russian forces, according to a friend whose house was burned down and who was arrested at the same time. According to his account reported by an acquaintance, the two Ukrainians were brought to a farm “used by the Russians as a site of detention, torture and execution”. “They beat him, he was screaming”, confided the friend of the victim, detained for three days without water or food. The latter was released, but the victim’s body was “found in a well with evidence of torture”.
The investigation details in parallel the murder of a second member of the “territorial defense force” of Severynivka. “We spoke to each other for the last time on March 26. On the 27th, the Russians came to search our house, assures his widow, left the village on March 6th. On March 28, a girl from our village called me. She told me that according to the locals, my husband had been taken prisoner by the Russians. (…) On April 18, his body was found in a forest”, she describes. The IPHR report also cites a neighbor who witnessed the search of the house. According to him, the Russian forces accused the victim of being a nationalist and threatened to kill him. The autopsy showed that the man had been shot in the neck.