Human Rights Watch documented Russia’s war crimes against Ukrainians
Human Rights Watch has documented cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations against civilians in temporarily occupied areas of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine. These include a case of repeated rape, cases of summary execution, and other cases of unlawful violence and threats against civilians between February 27 and March 14, 2022.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 people, including witnesses, victims, and local residents of Russia-occupied territories, in person or by telephone.
Here are some stories of victims:
A woman from Mala Rohan, Kharkiv region, told that a Russian soldier had repeatedly raped her at a shelter. She said that he beat her and cut her face, neck, and hair with a knife.
“He told me to give him oral sex. The whole time he held the gun near my temple or put it into my face. Twice he shot at the ceiling and said it was to give me more ‘motivation’… He was 20. He said that I reminded him of a girl he went to school with.”
In Vorzel Russian soldiers threw a smoke grenade into a basement, then shot a woman and a 14-year-old child as they emerged from the basement, where they had been sheltering.
A man, who was with her in the same basement when she died from her wounds two days later, provided the information to Human Rights Watch. The child died immediately, he said.
In Staryi Bykiv, Chernihiv region, Russian forces rounded up at least six men, and later executed them, according to the mother of one of the men. They took men from three different families. One mother had both of her sons taken and shot. Besides, they also took all of the villagers’ wood, leaving them nothing for cooking or heating their homes.
