‘Executions, torture and disappearances’: HRW accuses Russia over war crimes in Ukraine

Russian forces committed war crimes in northeastern Ukraine by executing and torturing civilians, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has claimed.

In a new report, the NGO documented 22 alleged summary executions in parts of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions that the Kremlin’s troops held between late February and the end of March.

This follows HRW’s earlier investigation into 10 executions that Russian troops are said to have carried out in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and other nearby towns and villages.

“The numerous atrocities by Russian forces occupying parts of northeastern Ukraine early in the war are abhorrent, unlawful, and cruel,” said Giorgi Gogia, HRW’s associate Europe and Central Asia director.

“These abuses against civilians are evident war crimes that should be promptly and impartially investigated and appropriately prosecuted,” he added.

As well as dozens of executions, HRW’s new report outlines nine other extra-judicials killings, six potential enforced disappearances and seven cases of torture. The findings were based on research visits to 17 Ukrainian towns and villages, and on interviews with 65 people between 10 April and 10 May.

The Kremlin continues to deny that its soldiers have targeted Ukrainian civilians, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.

Ihor Savran, 45, is one of the 22 people whose deaths are being treated as executions. His mother Anastasia Andriivna told HRW that he was taken from her home in the village of Andriivka, northwest of Kyiv, by Russian troops on 19 March, after they discovered his 1993 National Guard service coat.

Less than two weeks later, Savran’s mother discovered his body 100 metres from their home, with his trainers sticking out of a barn door.

“He had been shot in the ear, with blood covering his face. His best friend [Volodymyr Pozharnikov] was lying next to him; he had also been shot. His legs were bent in an unnatural position,” she said.

Elsewhere, 17-year-old twin brothers Yevhen and Bohdan Samodiy were reportedly shot to death along with their 18-year-old friend Valentin Yakimchuk in the village of Mokhnatyn, Chernihiv region, by a passing Russian convoy on the afternoon of 14 March.

HRW also accused the Kremlin’s forces of abusing detainees by beating them, using electric shocks and staging mock executions. It added that hundreds of civilians were kept under inhumane conditions in basements, with 10 older people dying in one cellar in Yahidne, a village to the south of Chernihiv.

The latest HRW report into Russian atrocities was published on the same day that a 21-year-old Russian soldier is tried on war crimes charges in Kyiv.

Vadim Shishimarin stands accused of murdering a 62-year-old in Sumy, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.