Evidence shows Russian troops committed war crimes near kyiv, says Amnesty International

Amnesty International said on Friday there was convincing evidence that Russian troops had committed war crimes, including extrajudicial executions of civilians, when they occupied an area on the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital in February and March.

Civilians also suffered abuses such as “reckless shooting and torture” at the hands of Russian forces during their failed attack on kyiv in the early stages of the invasion launched by the Kremlin on February 24, the human rights group said in a report.

“These are not isolated incidents. They are a very important part of a pattern whenever Russian forces were in control of a city or town,” Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser, told a news conference in kyiv.

Information collected by the group “can be used, hopefully, to hold the perpetrators to account, if not today, then someday in the future,” he said.

Russia, which calls its invasion a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists, denies any abuses have been committed by its forces. kyiv and its Western backers say the claim of fascism is a false pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression.

Ukrainian authorities say they are investigating more than 9,000 possible war crimes committed by Russian troops. The International Criminal Court also investigates alleged war crimes.

Amnesty’s report is the latest to document alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces when they occupied an area northwest of kyiv, including the town of Bucha, where Ukrainian authorities say more than 400 civilians were killed. Moscow withdrew its troops in early April.

The report concluded that Russian troops had committed a “large number of apparent war crimes” in Bucha, including “numerous unlawful killings,” most of them near the intersection of Yablunska and Vodoprovidna streets.

A Reuters investigation published on Thursday documented clues, including testimonies and evidence centered on Yablunska Street, about the identities of individual Russian soldiers and military units present in Bucha.

The units included the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, which Amnesty reported was also present in the city.

Rovera said he collected in Bucha armor-piercing bullets and shell casings produced at a plant in Tula, south of Moscow, for rifles used only by elite Russian airborne units whose presence in Bucha has been confirmed by Amnesty.

“We also found and were able to see some military documents that indicate the presence of these special units in these places where these crimes were committed,” he said.

Amnesty said it had documented 22 cases of unlawful killings by Russian forces, “most of which were apparent extrajudicial executions,” in Bucha and nearby areas.

Asked by Reuters ahead of Amnesty’s report on Russia’s operation in Bucha, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The Bucha story is a fabrication and fabrication.”

Amnesty also said in its report that Russian airstrikes that hit eight residential buildings on March 1 and 2 in the town of Borodyanka, killing at least 40 civilians, were “disproportionate and indiscriminate, and apparent war crimes.”

“Russian forces cannot credibly claim that they did not know that civilians lived in the targeted buildings,” he said.

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