Russia ‘tossed aside’ laws of war in Ukraine assault, UN rights chief says

Expanded Russian operations in eastern Ukraine expected to lead to more Mariupol-style carnage

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. AP

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UN human rights boss Michelle Bachelet on Friday described mounting evidence of Russian war crimes during its invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, including signs of indiscriminate shelling and summary executions.

“International humanitarian law has not merely been ignored but seemingly tossed aside,” Ms Bachelet said, highlighting the shelling of cities and strikes on schools, hospitals and other non-military targets these past eight weeks.

A Russian rocket attack on a railway station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on April 8, which killed 60 civilians and injured 111 others, was “emblematic of the failure to adhere to the principle of distinction” between soldiers and non-combatants, she said.

Her comments come amid allegations of Russian atrocities in Ukraine, including the discovery of a mass grave in the Russia-occupied village of Manhusg and a report from Human Rights Watch, a US-based group, with new details of abuses in Bucha, near Kyiv.

A UN mission to Bucha on April 9 documented the unlawful killing of about 50 civilians. Investigators are examining more than 300 allegations of butchered civilians in the regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy – which were also until recently under Russian control.

In all, the UN has documented the deaths of 2,345 civilians since the invasion began on February 24, although this figure is widely viewed as a significant undercount because the death toll from Mariupol and other bombed-out cities is not yet fully known.

"The scale of summary executions of civilians in areas previously occupied by Russian forces is also emerging," said Ms Bachelet. Evidence of atrocities must be preserved, she said, so that perpetrators are brought to justice.

UN investigators have also documented what appeared to be the use of indiscriminate weapons, causing civilian deaths, by Ukrainian forces in the east of the turbulent nation, said the statement from the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Russia says it has been conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine since February 24 to disarm and “denazify” its smaller neighbour. Moscow denies targeting civilians and accuses its enemy of carrying out “staged provocations”.

Russia was on Friday trying to turn the page on its recent military setbacks, announcing plans to seize all of southern and eastern Ukraine after on Thursday proclaiming that it had won the war’s biggest fight, the battle for the port city of Mariupol, after a long siege.

Volunteers wearing white hazmat suits and masks were on Friday scouring Mariupol’s charred housing blocks and wrecked cars for bodies and loading them on to lorries. Ukraine estimates that tens of thousands of civilians died in the siege.

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council charity and a former UN official, said during a visit to Ukraine that Russia’s revived offensive in the east would lead to more Mariupol-style devastation.

“The escalation of war in east Ukraine will result in horrific bloodshed and mass displacement from the eastern regions, including Luhansk and Donetsk, re-traumatising communities who have already suffered eight years of hostilities,” Mr Egelandsaid.

“In some places, the escalation may also lead to entire cities being besieged.”