Pain in the first person: Amnesty International gathered shocking testimonies of war crimes in Ukraine

Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday revealed testimonies of people who witnessed or had direct knowledge of the executions of civilians and “deliberate killings” perpetrated by Russian troops in Ukraine, episodes that urgently need to be investigated as probable “war crimes”.

Researchers from the human rights organization have interviewed more than 20 residents in towns close to Kiev following the withdrawal of Russian troops who have described repeated scenes of abuse and “illegal violence”.

AI further claims that it has “evidence” of indiscriminate killing of civilians in attacks on Kharkiv and the Sumy region, has documented an air strike that killed people queuing for food in Chernihiv, as well as accounts of civilians living under siege in Kharkiv, Izium and Mariupol.

A 46-year-old woman from Bohdanivka, east of Kiev, told Amnesty International how Russian soldiers entered that town between 7 and 8 March.

On the night of March 9, he heard gunfire at the windows on the ground floor of his house. She and her husband shouted that they were unarmed civilians. When they descended together with their 10-year-old daughter and mother-in-law, two Russian soldiers pushed them into a room with the heating boiler.

“They forced us inside and they slammed the door. Just a minute later, they opened the door and asked my husband if he had cigarettes. He told them no, he hadn't smoked for two weeks. He was shot in the right arm. The other said 'kill him' and they shot him in the head,” he described.

“He didn't die on the spot. From 9.30 at night until 4 in the morning I was still breathing, although I was not conscious. I begged him... 'If you can hear me, please move a finger. ' He didn't move it, but I put his hand on my knee and he squeezed. The blood was running,” the woman continued.

“When she breathed her last breath, I turned to my daughter and said, 'It looks like dad died, '” she explained.

AI investigators spoke to one of that woman's neighbors, who saw Russian soldiers enter the house that night and confirmed that she saw her husband's body collapsed in a corner.

Kateryna Tkachova, 18, was in the town of Vorzel on March 3, when tanks marked with the letter “Z” appeared on her street.

His mother and father went outside from the basement where they were all hiding, asking their daughter to stay there. Kateryna heard gunshots shortly after.

“Once the tanks had passed, I jumped over the fence of the neighbor's house. I wanted to check if they were alive. I looked over the fence and saw my mother lying on her back on one side of the road, and my father was face down on the other side of the street. I saw big holes in his coat,” he recalled.

“The next day I approached them. My father had six large holes in his back, my mother had a smaller hole in his chest,” he explained.

Human rights violations seem to be repeated in all areas of the Russian offensive. During the first days of the occupation of the city of Hostomel, Taras Kuzmak drove to deliver food and medicine in bomb shelters where civilians gathered.

At 1330 hours on 3 March, he was going with the mayor of the city, Yuryi Prylypko, and two other men, when his car was shot in the direction of a large residential complex that had been taken over by Russian forces. The men tried to jump out of the car, but one of them, Ivan Zorya, was killed immediately, while Yuryi Prylypko fell to the ground wounded after being shot. Taras Kuzmak and the other surviving man hid for hours behind a bulldozer as the shooting continued.

“They noticed us and immediately opened fire, there was no warning. I could only hear the mayor [Prylypko]. I knew he was wounded, but he didn't know if he was fatal or not. I just told him to stay still, not to move... They fired again around 3 pm, and half an hour later I realized that I had no life. There is a kind of breath that someone has just before they die, their last breath,” he told Amnesty. According to him, Zorya died on the spot because of the weapon used by the Russians. “They ripped his head off, I think they must have used something of a high caliber,” he added.

Unlawful killings and rape

The NGO also spoke with a woman who survived rape and whose husband was extrajudicially executed by Russian forces.

On 9 March, she said, two soldiers entered her house (in a village east of Kiev), killed her husband and then repeatedly raped her at gunpoint while her young son was hiding in a nearby boiler room. The woman was able to escape from the village to Ukrainian-controlled territory with her son.

For her part, Milena, a 24-year-old girl from Bucha, told Amnesty International that she saw the body of a woman who had lived on her street lying outside her home. The woman's mother told Milena that her daughter had been shot in the early days of the invasion as she looked over her fence at a Russian military vehicle.

Amnesty International's Crisis Testing Laboratory independently verified video footage confirming the location of the shallow pit in which it was buried.

In the case of Volodymyr Zakhliupanyy and his wife, they fled Hostomel in the early days of the invasion, but their 39-year-old son Serhiy was determined to stay.

At first, they spoke on the phone every day, and Serhiy described the intense fighting in the city. On March 4, Volodymyr was no longer able to contact his son. The friends who remained in the city then tried to find Serhiy, and went to the building where he had taken refuge in the basement.

Volodymyr told Amnesty International: “When they asked neighbors, they were told that on 13 March the Russians had taken my son [from the basement]. When they went looking for Serhiy, they found him behind the garages of the same building... they said he had been shot in the head.”

Life under Russian Occupation

Interviewees told Amnesty International that they had lost access to electricity, water and gas in the early days of the invasion, and that access to food was very limited. There was little mobile phone connectivity, and some interviewees said that Russian soldiers had confiscated or destroyed mobile phones every time they saw residents carrying them, or threatening them with violence for having a phone.

Threats of violence and intimidation were also widespread.

A man from Hostomel said he saw an entire dormitory of people taking refuge from the bombing and were forced to go outside, where the Russian military immediately fired on their heads, forcing them to fall to the ground.

Two men from Bucha also said they were regularly shot by snipers when they went to pick up food from a destroyed grocery store near their home.

In a statement, Amnesty International's Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, said: “The intentional killing of civilians is a violation of human rights and a war crime. These deaths must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible must be prosecuted, including those who hold high positions in the chain of command.”

(With information from EFE)

KEEP READING: