During the illegal [1] Russian invasion of Ukraine The Russian Military has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian medical facilities, hospitals, clinics, and ambulances, and health workers. The Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom stated that Russia was prioritizing attacks on Ukrainian medical facilities as a method of warfare, often striking these, as well as power infrastructure with Iranian-made drones such as Shahed 131, Shahed 136. [2]
As of 21 December 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 1,422 attacks on health care reported by their 'Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care' (SSA) tool. [3]
The WHO, in an article published on 22 February 2024, reported 1,574verified attacks on health, and the deaths of 118 health-care workers, since the start of the full scale illegal invasion of Ukraine. [4]
As of 4 April 2024, WHO verified 1682 attacks on health care in Ukraine, resulting in 128 deaths and 288 injuries of medical personnel and patients. [5]
As of 10 July 2024 Physicians for Human Rights "Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine" website counted 1442 attacks on health care facilities, out of which 742 destroyed hospitals and clinics, killing 210 health workers. [6]
On 8 July 2024, Human Rights Watch reported of 1,736 damaged or destroyed medical facilities. [7]
Russia has a history of employing systematic attacks on medical facilities as a tactic of war. [8] [9] [10] Human rights organizations operating in Syria state that Russian Federation is deliberately using GPS coordinates handed over to them by the UN's deconfliction line as a list of targets. [11] [12] [13] This became such a problem, that doctors refused to share their coordinates with the UN in an attempt to avoid Russian attacks. [14] Eventually the Russian Federation left the UN program claiming it was in protest of the UN not sharing the list with their Syrian ally, who likewise, engaged in a campaign of attacks against healthcare facilities. [15] [16] [17] [18] Russian state media had been routinely justifying attacks on civilian objects, destruction of towns and inciting extermination of civilian population in Ukraine. [19]
Between February 24 and March 21, 2022, sixty-four medical facilities and their personnel were targeted by Russian forces in Ukraine, the WHO reported. [20]
By March 25, 2022, the facilities were being hit at rate of two to three a day. Mostly with heavy weapons. [21]
By April 8, 2022, there were 91 attacks confirmed by the WHO, averaging 2 attacks on hospitals, ambulances or medical supply depots per day. [22]
By November 21, 2022, there were at least 703 attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities with 144 such facilities completely destroyed by Russia. [23]
By the end of 2022, nearly one in ten Ukrainian hospitals had been damaged. [24] [25]
The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) found that Russia has "deliberately and repeated" targeted Kherson city's medical facilities between December 2022, and May 2023. [26] [27]
By May 30, 2023, the WHO had verified 1,000 attacks, the highest number ever recorded. [28] Other monitoring groups have also marked the milestone 1000th attack, though using different metrics. [29] Collectively this constitutes almost daily, deliberate instances of war crimes on a massive scale. [30]
By February 22, 2024, the WHO regional direct confirmed that there had been "over 1500" attacks reported. [31] [32]
The UN reported 131 additional attacks on health infrastructure in their February 21, 2024, report. [3] This seems to be since January 2024.
A deadly attack occurred on the first day of the war, February 24, 2022, at the Central City Hospital in Vuhledar when a Russian ballistic missile full of cluster munitions fell just outside of the hospital, killing four and injuring ten. [33] [34]
The most widely covered attack was the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital. [33]
On 23 November 2022, Russian missile strikes destroyed a maternity ward in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, in the town of Vilnyansk, killing a newborn baby. [2]
On July 8, 2024, Russian cruise missiles attacked children's hospitals in Kyiv and Dnipro. [35]
A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric power transmission lines.
A human shield is a non-combatant who either volunteers or is forced to shield a legitimate military target in order to deter the enemy from attacking it.
Medical neutrality refers to a principle of noninterference with medical services in times of armed conflict and civil unrest: physicians must be allowed to care for the sick and wounded, and soldiers must receive care regardless of their political affiliations; all parties must refrain from attacking and misusing medical facilities, transport, and personnel. Concepts comprising the principles of medical neutrality derive from international human rights law, medical ethics and humanitarian law. Medical neutrality may be thought of as a kind of social contract that obligates societies to protect medical personnel in both times of war and peace, and obligates medical personnel to treat all individuals regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or political affiliation. Violations of medical neutrality constitute crimes outlined in the Geneva Conventions.
War crimes in the Syrian civil war have been numerous and serious. A United Nations report published in August 2014 stated that "the conduct of the warring parties in the Syrian Arab Republic has caused civilians immeasurable suffering". Another UN report released in 2015 stated that the war has been "characterized by a complete lack of adherence to the norms of international law" and that "civilians have borne the brunt of the suffering inflicted by the warring parties". Various countries have prosecuted several war criminals for a limited number of atrocities committed during the Syrian civil war.
Humanitarian aid during the Syrian civil war has been provided by various international bodies, organizations and states. The main effort is coordinated by Jonh Ging of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). In 2014, U.N. Security Council Resolution 2165 authorised humanitarian aid to be supplied via four border crossings not controlled by the Syrian government, generally to supply rebel-controlled territory.
During the Syrian Civil War, Russian and Syrian government forces have conducted a campaign that has focused on the destruction of hospitals and medical facilities within areas not under the control of the Syrian government. Russian and Syrian officials have repeatedly denied deliberately targeting medical facilities.
A double tap is the practice of following a strike with a second strike several minutes later, hitting emergency responders and medical personnel rushing to the site. A Florida Law Review article argued that the practice likely is a war crime since it grossly violates the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which prohibit targeting civilians, the wounded, or those no longer able to continue fighting.
Russian war crimes are violations of international criminal law including war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide which the official armed and paramilitary forces of Russia have committed or been accused of committing since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as well as the aiding and abetting of crimes by proto-statelets or puppet statelets which are armed and financed by Russia, including the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. These have included murder, torture, terror, persecution, deportation and forced transfer, enforced disappearance, child abductions, rape, looting, unlawful confinement, inhumane acts, unlawful airstrikes and attacks against civilian objects, use of banned chemical weapons, and wanton destruction.
Health Care In Danger is a campaign organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross that highlights violent attacks on patients, healthcare workers, and healthcare facilities in conflict zones.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which started in 2014. The invasion, the largest conflict in Europe since World War II, has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. As of 2024, Russian troops occupy about 20% of Ukraine. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian military and authorities have committed war crimes, such as deliberate attacks against civilian targets, including on hospitals, medical facilities and on the energy grid; indiscriminate attacks on densely-populated areas; the abduction, torture and murder of civilians; forced deportations; sexual violence; destruction of cultural heritage; and the killing and torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine violated international law. The invasion has also been called a crime of aggression under international criminal law, and under some countries' domestic criminal codes – including those of Ukraine and Russia – although procedural obstacles exist to prosecutions under these laws.
On 9 March 2022, the Russian Air Force bombed Maternity Hospital No. 3, a hospital complex functioning both as a children's hospital and maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring at least sixteen, and leading to at least one stillbirth.
The attack to the care house in Stara Krasnianka took place on 11 March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 7 March the Ukrainian armed forces occupied a care house in the village of Stara Krasnianka, near Kreminna, Luhansk region, establishing a firing position and reportedly leaving the patients unevacuated due to the presence of mines. On 11 March 2022 pro-Russian separatist forces attacked the care house with heavy weapons while 71 patients with disabilities and 15 members of staff were still inside. A fire broke out and fifty six civilians died.
Evgeniy Poddubny is a Russian war correspondent, propagandist, and special correspondent for the Russia-24 and Russia-1 television channels. He was born in Belgorod, and received a master's degree in psychology and has worked as a war correspondent for Russian state television. He has covered Russian conflicts in Georgia, Syria, as well as in Ukraine. For his work, he has received sanctions by both the United Kingdom, and Australia who accuse him of disinformation on behalf of the Russian government. In August 2024, he received injuries after his vehicle was struck with a loitering munition while covering the August 2024 Kursk Oblast incursion.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military have carried out deliberate attacks against civilian targets and indiscriminate attacks in densely-populated areas. The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says the Russian military exposed the civilian population to unnecessary and disproportionate harm by using cluster bombs and by firing other weapons with wide-area effects into civilian areas, such as missiles, heavy artillery shells and multiple launch rockets. As of 2024, the attacks had resulted in the UN-documented deaths of between 11,000 and estimated 40,000 dead civilians. On 22 April 2022, the UN reported that of the 2,343 civilian casualties it had been able to document, it could confirm 92.3% of these deaths were as a result of the actions of the Russian armed forces.
The use of cluster munitions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present) has been recorded by a number of eyewitnesses and journalists, as well as representatives of the UN, humanitarian and public organizations. In particular, the head of the UN Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet, reported on March 30 at least 24 cases since the beginning of the invasion. As of July 1, hundreds of attacks by Russian forces with cluster munitions have already been recorded in the settlements of the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions. 215 civilians are known to have been killed in these shellings and 474 injured, many of which may go unreported. Both Russia as well as Ukraine have used cluster munitions during the conflict, however, Russian use has been extensive while Ukrainian use has been more limited.
A significant number of attacks on healthcare facilities occurred during the Israel–Hamas war. During the first week of the war, there were 94 attacks on health care facilities in Israel and Gaza, killing 29 healthcare workers and injuring 24. The attacks on healthcare facilities contributed to a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. By 30 November, the World Health Organization documented 427 attacks on healthcare in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, resulting in 566 fatalities and 758 injuries. By February 2024, it was reported that "every hospital in Gaza is either damaged, destroyed, or out of service due to lack of fuel." By April, WHO had verified 906 attacks on healthcare in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon.As of June 2024, according to WHO, Israel has attacked 464 health care facilities, killed 727 health care workers, injured 933 health care workers, and damaged or destroyed 113 ambulances
Many health workers have been killed during attacks on medical facilities and medical transport in the Israel–Hamas war. Although the injuries happened both on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side, most of these attacks were carried out by Israeli forces against Palestinians.
Destruction of the healthcare system is a war crime that may consist of such actions as attacks on health care facilities such as hospitals, harm to healthcare workers, blocking of humanitarian aid and other supplies needed by the healthcare system. It has been reported during the Israeli blockade of Gaza and Israel–Hamas war, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Syrian civil war, and Sudan conflict. In order to prevent belligerents from justifying the destruction of the healthcare system by claiming that enemies were using the facilities as human shields, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini propose clarifying that all attacks that damage the healthcare system are war crimes.
