By 2009, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued 115 verdicts (including the virdict in the Baysayeva v. Russia case) in which it found the Russian government guilty of perpetrating enforced disappearances, murder, torture, and failing to properly investigate these crimes in Chechnya.[21] In 2021, the ECHR also separately found Russia guilty of murder, torture, looting and destruction of homes in Georgia, as well as preventing the return of 20,000 displaced Georgians to their territory.[22][23][24]
After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the area around Kars was ceded to Russia. This resulted in a large number of Muslims leaving and settling in remaining Ottoman lands. Batum and its surrounding area was also ceded to Russia causing many local Turkish and Georgian Muslims to migrate to the west "as a result of persecution, or fear of persecution, by Christian Russians."[29]
In the 1990s and 2000s, war crimes trials held in the Baltic states led to the prosecution of some Russians, mostly in absentia, for crimes against humanity committed during or shortly after World War II, including killings or deportations of civilians. Today, the Russian government engages in historical negationism.[35] Russian media refers to the Soviet crimes against humanity and war crimes as a "Western myth".[36] In Russian history textbooks, the atrocities are either altered to portray the Soviets positively or omitted entirely.[37] In 2017, Russian PresidentVladimir Putin, himself a war crime fugitive since 2023, while acknowledging the "horrors of Stalinism", criticized the "excessive demonization of Stalin" by "Russia's enemies".[38]
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya declared its independence. Russian officials refused to recognize Chechnya's declaration of independence, sparking tensions. These tensions ultimately escalated into a full-scale war when 25,000 Russian soldiers crossed into Chechnya on 11 December 1994.[39] The war ended with de facto Chechen independence and a Russian troop withdrawal in 1996. However, tensions between Russia and Chechnya still existed and they continued to escalate until the second war broke out in 1999, and Russia waged counterinsurgency until 2009. It was concluded when Russia took full control of Chechnya and installed a pro-Russian government. Numerous war crimes were committed, most of them were committed by the Russian armed forces.[40][41] Some scholars has estimated that the brutality of the Russian attacks on such a small ethnic group amounts to a crime of genocide.[42][43]
During the two wars, the Chechens were dehumanized and Russian propaganda depicted them as "blacks", "bandits", "terrorists", "cockroaches" and "bedbugs". The Russian armed forces perpetrated numerous war crimes.[44]
Russian troops burying corpses in a trench in Chechnya during the Second Chechen War
Throughout the First Chechen War, human rights organizations accused Russian forces of starting a brutal war with total disregard for international humanitarian law, causing tens of thousands of unnecessary civilian casualties among the Chechen population. The main strategy in the Russian war effort was to use heavy artillery and air strikes, leading to numerous indiscriminate attacks on civilians. According to Human Rights Watch, the campaign was "unparalleled in the area since World War II for its scope and destructiveness, followed by months of indiscriminate and targeted fire against civilians".[45]
The crimes included the use of prohibited cluster bombs in the 1995 Shali cluster bomb attack, which targeted a market, a gas station and a hospital,[46][47][48] and the April 1995 Samashki massacre, in which it is estimated that up to 300 civilians died during the attack.[49] Russian forces conducted an operation of zachistka, house-by-house searches throughout the entire village. Federal soldiers deliberately and arbitrarily attacked civilians and civilian dwellings in Samashki by shooting residents and burning houses with flame-throwers. They wantonly opened fire or threw grenades into basements where residents, mostly women, elderly persons and children, had been hiding.[50] Russian troops intentionally burned many bodies, either by throwing the bodies into burning houses or by setting them on fire.[51]
During the First Battle of Grozny, Russian air raids and artillery bombardments were described as the heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since the destruction of Dresden.[52] The Russian historian and general Dmitri Volkogonov said the Russian military's bombardment of Grozny killed around 35,000 civilians, including 5,000 children.[53] This has led to Western and Chechen sources describing the Russian strategy as deliberate terror bombing.[54] The bloodbath of Grozny shocked Russia and the outside world, causing severe criticism of the war. International monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) described the scenes as nothing short of an "unimaginable catastrophe", while former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called the war a "disgraceful, bloody adventure" and German chancellor Helmut Kohl called it "sheer madness".[55]
In a March 1996 report, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) accused Russian troops of firing on civilians and killing them at checkpoints and of summarily executing captured Chechen men, both civilians and fighters.[41] Two cases involved Russian soldiers murdering humanitarian aid workers who tried to save a civilian from execution on a street in Grozny. Russian Ministry of Interior forces officers fired into a group of soldiers who refused to kill the civilian population.[41]
The Second Chechen War, which began in 1999, was even more brutal than the previous war.[56][57] According to human rights activists, Russian troops systematically committed the following crimes in Chechnya: the destruction of cities and villages, not justified by military necessity; shelling and bombardment of unprotected settlements; summary extrajudicial executions and killings of civilians; torture, ill-treatment and infringement of human dignity; serious bodily harm intentionally inflicted on persons not directly participating in hostilities; deliberate strikes against the civilian population, civilian and medical vehicles; illegal detentions of the civilian population; enforced disappearances; looting and destruction of civilian and public property; extortion; taking hostages for ransom; corpse trade.[58][59][60] There were also rapes,[61][62][63] which, along with women, were also subjected to men.[64][65][66][67][68][69]
Some of the crimes committed towards the civilian population included the following: 1999 Elistanzhi cluster bomb attack against civilians, leaving mostly women and children dead.[70][71] The Grozny ballistic missile attack, in which ten hypersonic missiles fell without warning and targeted the city's only maternity hospital, post office, mosque, and a crowded market.[72][73][74] the casualties occurred at the central market, and the attack is estimated to have killed over 100 instantly and injuring up to 400 others. The Russian Air Force perpetrated repeated rocket attacks on a large convoy of refugees trying to enter Ingushetia through a supposed "safe exit" during the Baku–Rostov highway bombing.[75] This was repeated in December 1999 when Russian soldiers opened fire on a refugee convoy marked with white flags.[76]
During the Alkhan-Yurt massacre where Russian soldiers went on a murdering spree throughout the village and summarily executing, raping, torturing, looting, burning and killing anyone in their way. Nearly all the killings were committed by Russian soldiers who were looting.[77] Civilian attempts to stop the madness were often met with death.[78] There has been no serious attempt conducted by the Russian authorities to bring to justice those accountable for the crimes committed at Alkhan-Yurt. Credible testimony suggests that Russian leadership in the region had knowledge of what was happening and simply chose to ignore it.[77] Russian military leadership dismissed the incident as "fairy tales", claiming that the bodies were planted and the slaughter fabricated in order to damage the reputation of Russian troops.[79] Russian general Vladimir Shamanov dismissed accountability for the abuses in the village saying "Don't you dare touch the soldiers and officers of the Russian army. They are doing a sacred thing today-they are defending Russia. And don't you dare sully the Russian soldier with your dirty hands![77]
Dead Chechen soldier
In what is regarded as one of gravest war crimes in the war, Russian federal forces went on a village-sweep (zachistka), that involved summary executions of dozens of people, murder, looting, arson and rape of Chechen civilians in what is known as the Novye Aldi massacre.[80][81][82] Russian troops had cluster-bombed the village a day prior before entering the village, telling local residents to come out from their cellars for inspection the next day.[83] Upon entering the village, Russian soldiers shot their victims in cold blood, with automatic fire at close range. Victims ranged from one-year-old babies to an 82 year old woman. Victims were asked for money or jewelry by Russian soldiers, which served as a pretext for their execution if the amount was insufficient. Federal soldiers removed gold teeth from their victims and looted their corpses. Killings were accompanied by arson in an attempt to destroy evidence of summary executions and other civilian killings. There were several cases of rape. In one incident, Russian soldiers gang raped several women before strangling them to death. Pillage on a massive scale took place in the village, with Russian soldiers stripping the houses of civilians in broad daylight. Any attempt to make the Russian authorities take responsibilities for the massacre resulted in indignant denial. Human Rights Watch described the Russian authorities' response as "typical". A spokesperson from the Russian Ministry of Defence declared that "these assertions are nothing but a concoction not supported by fact or any proof . . . [and] should be seen as a provocation whose goal is to discredit the federal forces' operation against the terrorists in Chechnya."[83][81] An eye-witness also said that investigators from the Federal Security Service told her the massacre was probably committed by Chechen fighters "disguised as federal troops".[84]
A Chechen woman with a wounded child
During the Staropromyslovsky massacre between December 1999 and January 2000, Russian soldiers went on an apparent spree, rounding up civilians and summarily executing them.[85][86] The crimes included widespread looting and arson. Victims included the entire nine-member family of the Zubayevs, which had reportedly been shot dead in the street by a heavy submachine gun (most likely from an armored vehicle).[87] In one incident, Russian soldiers fired at civilians hiding in a cellar. According to a survivor of the incident, upon having yelled out to the soldiers, "Please don't shoot us, we are local civilians," the soldiers ordered them to come out of the cellar with their hands up. After coming out of the cellar, the Russian soldiers ordered them back down, after which they threw down several hand grenades at the civilians. The survivors were then again ordered back out of the cellar, after which the Russian soldiers shot the survivors with machine gun fire at close range.[85][87][86] The massacre went unpunished and unacknowledged by the Russian authorities.
The 1999–2000 siege and bombardments of Grozny caused tens of thousands of civilians to perish.[88] The Russian army issued an ultimatum during the siege urging Chechens to leave the city or be destroyed without mercy.[89] Around 300 people were killed while trying to escape in October 1999 and subsequently buried in a mass grave.[90] The Russian president Putin vowed that the military would not stop bombing Grozny until Russian troops quote 'fulfilled their task to the end.' In 2003, the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on Earth.[91] The bombing of Grozny included banned Buratino thermobaric and fuel-air bombs, igniting the air of civilians hiding in basements.[92][93] There were also reports of the use of chemical weapons, banned according to Geneva law.[94]
International humanitarian workers are reported to have been killed by Russian soldiers during the war in Chechnya. On 17 December 1996, six delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were killed in an attack by masked gunmen at the ICRC hospital in Novye Atagi, near Grozny.[95] In 2010, Russian special forces officer, Major Aleksi Potyomkin, claimed that the murders were perpetrated by FSB agents.[96] A 2004 report identified Russian soldiers using rape as means of torture against the Chechens.[97] Out of 428 villages in Chechnya, 380 were bombed in the conflicts, leaving a 70% destruction of households behind.[98]
Amnesty International estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 civilians have been killed in the First Chechen War alone, mostly by indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces on densely populated areas,[99] and that a further 25,000 civilians died in the Second Chechen War.[100] Another source assumes that 40,000–45,000 civilians were killed in the second conflict.[101] Meanwhile, in 1996, the then Russian National Security chief Aleksandr Lebed said that 80,000 people died in the first war.[102] Combined with the military forces, historians estimate that up to a tenth of the entire Chechen population died in the first war,[103] 100,000 people out of a million.[104] Conservative estimates assume that at least 100,000–150,000 people died in the two conflicts.[105] Higher estimates by Chechen officials and nationals assume that up to 200,000–300,000 died in the two wars.[106][107]
Following a 7 August 2008 escalation between the break-away region of South Ossetia and Georgia, the Russian forces crossed the international border on 8 August and attacked Georgian soldiers in support of South Ossetia.[110][111][112] Russian soldiers also crossed into the other break-away region of Abkhazia, even though no fighting was recorded there. The war ended on 12 August with a ceasefire brokered by international diplomats. The Russian government recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries, though some scholars described that the two regions actually became Russian protectorates.[113]
HRW reported that no proof of intentional attacks on non-combatants by Georgian troops had been discovered.[114]
Russia deliberately attacked fleeing civilians in South Ossetia and the Gori district of Georgia.[5] Russian warplanes bombed civilian population centres in Georgia proper and villages of ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia.[5] Armed militias engaged in plundering, burning and kidnappings. Attacks by militias compelled Georgian civilians to run away.[5]
The use of cluster bombs by the Russians caused fatalities among civilians.[115] Amnesty International accused Russia of deliberately bombarding and attacking civilian areas and infrastructure, which is a war crime.[6] Russia denied using cluster bombs.[116] 228 Georgian civilians perished in the conflict.[112]
Following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, the pro-Russian Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted and fled to Russia, and the new Ukrainian government adopted a pro-European perspective. Russia responded with the annexation of Crimea, which was declared illegal by the UN General Assembly in its resolution 68/262,[119] while pro-Russian separatists declared the unrecognizedquasi-stateNovorossiya, intending a secession from Ukraine, and an insurgency which eventually led to the war in Donbas, the eastern parts of Ukraine. While Russia denied its involvement in the war in Donbas, numerous pieces of evidence pointed to its support of the pro-Russian separatists. Amnesty International accused Russia of "fuelling separatist crimes" and it called upon "all parties, including Russia, to stop their violations of the laws of war".[8]
The Russians widely use torture against captured Ukrainians (both military and civilians, which is a war crime). One of the first recorded cases of torture of prisoners of war in Ukraine was an incident on October 7 2014 in the city of Zuhres (Donetsk region), when 53-year-old Ukrainian Ihor Kozhoma, who was trying to take his wife out of the occupied territory, was tied to a column and tortured for several hours by Russians and local separatists.[120] A similar case was with Donetsk resident Iryna Dovhan (civilian) who was publicly tortured for her pro-Ukrainian position [121]
Damaged building in Lysychansk, 2014Damaged building in Kurakhove, 26 November 2014
Human Rights Watch stated that pro-Russian insurgents "failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid deploying in civilian areas" and in one case "actually moved closer to populated areas as a response to government shelling".[122] HRW called on all sides to stop using the "notoriously imprecise" Grad rockets.[122]
Another report by Human Rights Watch said that the insurgents had been "running amok...taking, beating and torturing hostages, as well as wantonly threatening and beating people who are pro-Kiev".[123] It also said that the insurgents had destroyed medical equipment, threatened medical staff, and occupied hospitals. A member of Human Rights Watch witnessed the exhumation of a "mass grave" in Sloviansk that was uncovered after insurgents retreated from the city.[123]
Insurgents with bayonet-equipped automatic rifles in the city of Donetsk paraded captured Ukrainian soldiers through the streets on 24 August, the Independence Day of Ukraine.[124][125] During the parade, Russian nationalistic songs were played from loudspeakers, and members of the crowd jeered at the prisoners with epithets like "fascist". Street cleaning machines followed the protesters, "cleansing" the ground they were paraded on.[124] Human Rights Watch said that this was in clear violation of the common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The article forbids "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment". They further said that the parade "may be considered a war crime".[124]
A mural of Ukrainian soldiers and police officers who died "defending Ukrainian unity" in Kyiv
A map of human rights violations committed by the separatists, called the "Map of Death", was published by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in October 2014.[126][127][128] The reported violations included detention camps and mass graves. Subsequently, on 15 October, the SBU opened a case on "crimes against humanity" perpetrated by insurgent forces.[129]
A mid-October report by Amnesty International documented cases of summary executions by pro-Russian forces.[130] A report by Human Rights Watch documented use of cluster munitions by anti-government forces.[131]
Amnesty International reported that it had found "new evidence" of summary killings of Ukrainian soldiers on 9 April 2015. Having reviewed video footage, it determined that at least four Ukrainian soldiers had been shot dead "execution style". AI deputy director for Europe and Central Asia Denis Krivosheev said that "the new evidence of these summary killings confirms what we have suspected for a long time".[134] AI also said that a recording released by the Kyiv Post of a man, allegedly separatist leader Arseny Pavlov, claiming to have killed fifteen Ukrainian prisoners of war was a "chilling confession", and that it highlighted "the urgent need for an independent investigation into this and all other allegations of abuses".[134][135] Russia's actions in Ukraine have been described as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity (Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shoot down).[136]
On 24 February 2022, Russian forces invaded and attacked Ukraine from the north, south and east, which was interpreted as a form of Russian irredentism.[140][141] The Russian invasion became the deadliest European war in the last 80 years.[142] HRW and Amnesty International accused Russia of using imprecise cluster munitions in civilian areas, including near hospitals and schools, which constitute unlawful attacks with weapons that indiscriminately kill and maim.[143][144] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned Russia's military action as a violation of international law.[145] Amnesty International labeled it an act of aggression that is a crime under international law.[9] Numerous war crimes were recorded, including murder or willful killings, torture, persecution, deportation or forced transfer, looting, rape against Ukrainian women, terror, enforced disappearance, attacks on civilians, unlawful airstrikes or attacks against civilian objects, wanton destruction not justified by military necessity including that of protected objects such as hospitals and cultural property, arbitrary detention, forceful conscription of nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of POWs.[146]
"Russian forces’ widespread and repeated targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure appears primarily designed to instill terror among the population in violation of the laws of war".
Among the targets of Russian airstrikes was Ukraine's capital Kyiv, a city of some 3 million people.[148] Kindergartens and orphanages were also shelled.[149] Russian forces were accused of a campaign of terror against Ukrainians.[147][150] On 3 March 2022, Russian forces were reportedly looting across Kherson[151] and selling stolen Ukrainian grain on the world market to finance the war.[152] During the Siege of Mariupol, the city was destroyed by shelling and cut off from electricity, food and water. A 6-year-old girl was reported to have died from dehydration under the ruins of her home in Mariupol on 8 March.[153] During the assault on Irpin, the Russian forces indiscriminately fired at refugees trying to flee across a collapsed bridge. A family of four was killed by a mortar strike.[154][155]
During the Battle of Kharkiv, the city was destroyed by Russian shelling, including a boarding school for blind people. Out of a population of 1.8 million, only 500,000 people remained in Kharkiv by 7 March 2022.[156] On 28 February 2022, a Russian cluster bomb attack killed 9 civilians and wounded 37 more in Kharkiv.[157][158] On 3 March, 47 civilians were killed in Chernihiv, most of whom were standing in line at a food store, waiting for bread, when a Russian air strike with eight unguided aerial bombs hit them.[159] In the Mariupol hospital airstrike, three people were killed, including a young girl;[160] whereas hundreds died in the Mariupol theatre airstrike, used as an air raid shelter.[161] Following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the E-40 highway around the Kyiv area, BBC News discovered 13 dead bodies left lying on the road, only two wearing Ukrainian military uniforms. The evidence points to Russian soldiers killing these fleeing civilians.[162]
After the Russian forces left the area of Bucha after a month of occupation, on 1–3 April photos and videos emerged showing hundreds of killed people lying on the streets or in mass graves. The event triggered an international response as it was widely covered by journalists as the Bucha massacre.[163]
The body of the 4-year-old girl Liza Dmitrieva (left) and the severed part of her mother's leg (right) after the Russian missile strike on Vinnytsia in July 2022. Liza became one of the symbols of Russian atrocities in Ukraine[164]
Thousands of civilians were killed by Russia's indiscriminate shelling and missiles strikes against civilian areas: in Borordianka,[165]Kramatorsk,[166]Vinnytsia,[167]Chasiv Yar,[168]Serhiivka,[169] and others. A Ukrainian official said that Russia is using mobile crematoriums to dispose of bodies in Mariupol in an attempt to cover up evidence of war crimes and hide the number of people that have died.[170] On 7 May 2022, the Bilohorivka school bombing killed dozens of people sheltering in the basement.[171]Odesa was bombed continuously for months.[172] On 15 June 2022, OHCHR expressed concerns over reports that Ukrainian children were forcibly deported to Russia, where they were being sent for rushed adoption, stating that these "do not appear to include steps for family reunification or respect the best interests of the child". UNICEF similarly declared that "adoptions should never occur during or immediately after emergencies".[173]
The people of Ukraine have suffered unimaginable horror during this war of aggression over the last 12 months. Let us be clear: the hands of Vladimir Putin and his armed forces are stained with blood.
The Russian Army also perpetrated wanton destruction of Ukrainian cities and cultural destruction, including confiscating and burning Ukrainian books, historical archives, and damaging more than 240 Ukrainian heritage sites,[187] described as a "urbicide".[188] 90% of Mariupol was destroyed by the Russian 2022 siege.[189]Marinka and Popasna were similarly completely destroyed and were described as "post-apocalyptic wasteland" and "ghost towns".[190][191] The UN called Russian bombing of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Odesa a possible war crime.[192] The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on 6 June 2023 caused flooding and environmental devastation, with some accusing Russia of ecocide.[193][194]
A UN report concluded that the Russian forces tortured and killed at least 32 Ukrainian POWs between December 2023 and February 2024.[199] On 22 March 2024, Russian forces perpetrated another wave of strikes with drones and missiles against Ukraine, leaving 1.5 million without electricity, which the UN condemned as a violation of IHL.[200] On 17 April 2024, a Russian missile strike hit an eight-storey building in Chernihiv, killing 18 civilians.[201]
On 8 July 2024, Russian forces bombed several Ukrainian cities with Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles, including Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih and Pokrovsk. A direct missile strike hit the oncology department of the children's hospital, Okhmatdyt, in Kyiv, killing several inside.[204] The UN condemned the attack.[205] Amnesty International rejected Kremlin's claims that the Ukrainian air defence accidentally bombed the children's hospital, adding it "seeks to deflect from Russia’s responsibility for killing civilians and destroying medical facilities".[206] On 4 September 2024, Russian forces carried out airstrikes against Lviv, including homes, schools and clinics, leaving seven dead, among them a mother and her three daughters.[207]
In August 2024, UN official Danielle Bell claimed that 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war had suffered from Russian tortures (e.g. beating, using electric shock or were strip naked).[208] The UN condemned Russia for its 1 October 2024 marketplace attack in Kherson during the busiest time of the day, which left five civilians dead.[209] Starting from October 2024, Russian forces started using grenade-dropping drones to hunt for civilians in Kherson, attacking and killing them in parks, bus stops or while cycling and walking on the streets. Afterwards, they would post videos on social media.[210]
19 November 2024 marked 1,000 days since Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine, with 65% of Ukraine's own energy production capacity having been destroyed up to that point.[211] Russia again intensified the illegal strikes against energy infrastructure ahead of the 2024/2025 winter.[212]
Russia-Ukraine War death toll compared to other modern European wars
By 30 March 2022, the UN reported that 4 million refugees fled Ukraine, that 50 hospitals in the country were targeted, and that Russia used the banned cluster munition in at least 24 instances.[213] Russia's attack against Ukraine forced 14 million people to flee their homes, of which 7.8 million fled the country,[214] sparking the largest refugee crisis of the 21st century.[215] On 22 April 2022, the UN recorded at least 2,343 killed civilians, of which 92.3% were attributable to the Russian armed forces.[216] By 21 February 2023, a year into the invasion, the UN recorded 8,006 killed civilians, including 487 children.[217] By November 2024, the number of civilian fatalities verified by the UN was 12,169,[218] including almost 700 children,[218] whereas Ukrainian sources reported of 16,500 killed civilians by January 2023.[219] The Peace Research Institute Oslo estimated 81,000 total dead in 2022.[220]
Total number of destroyed or damaged homes in Ukraine by 2023 compared to other modern wars
In February 2024, Ukrainian officials estimated up to 50,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed in the Russian invasion. US officials estimated around 70,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers and 120,000 dead Russian soldiers.[222] Ukrainian average mortality rate was 8.7/1000 people in 2020,[223] and jumped to 18.6/1000 in 2024, whereas Russia's mortality rate that same year was 14/1000, ranking them as #1 and #9, respectively, on the list of countries with the highest mortality rates.[224] In August 2024, Haaretz estimated 172,000 people died in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[225]The Economist estimated between 106,000 and 140,000 dead Russian soldiers by June 2024, a death toll higher than all of Moscow's wars from 1946 to 2022 combined.[226] Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, estimated that the war directly took the lives of 20,000 Ukrainian civilians and indirectly another 20,000 (due to such effects as lack of access to essential health care) by May 2023, reaching the levels of death toll comperable to Yugoslav Wars and the worst months of the Iraq War.[227]
From 24 February 2022 to 30 June 2023, OHCHR assessed that 90.5% of all civilian fatalities were killed by explosive weapons with wide area effects, and that 84.2% of them were recorded on the Ukrainian-controlled territory.[228] No region in Ukraine was spared from Russian attacks. By one estimate, only 3% of all Russian missiles, drones and bombs hit military targets, while 97% hit civilians targets.[229] By June 2023, UNDP estimated 1.5 million homes in Ukraine were either damaged or destroyed in the Russo-Ukrainian War.[221] By comparison, approximately 2 million homes were damaged or destroyed in Ukraine during World War II.[230] Additionally, around 174,000km2 (67,000sqmi) of Ukraine was contaminated by landmines and explosive remnants.[231]
On 3 July 2023, Around 700,000 children have been brought from conflict zones in Ukraine to Russian territory, according to a Russian MP, leading to concerns over illegal deportations and forced removals.[232]
In March 2024, the OHCHR Commission published a report concluding the following:
The Commission is concerned with the number, the geographic spread, and the gravity of human rights violations and corresponding international crimes which it has documented during its mandate. These have affected men, women, boys and girls of all backgrounds and ages. It has concluded that Russian authorities have committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law and violations of international human rights law, in addition to a wide range of war crimes, including the war crime of excessive incidental death, injury, or damage; wilful killings; torture; inhuman treatment; unlawful confinement; rape; as well as unlawful transfers and deportations. The Commission has also found that the Russian armed forces’ waves of attacks, starting 10 October 2022, on Ukraine’s energy-related infrastructure and the use of torture by Russian authorities may amount to crimes against humanity.[233]
Aftermath of a Russian missile strike against warehouses un Odesa (Odesa Oblast) on 24 February 2022
Russian aircraft drop firebombs in northern Aleppo in June 2016.
On 30 September 2015, Russian military intervened directly in the Syrian Civil War on the side of the pro-Russian government of Bashar al-Assad. According to Amnesty International, in late February 2016 Russian warplanes deliberately targeted civilians and rescue workers during their bombing campaign.[234] The human rights group has documented attacks on schools, hospitals and civilian homes. Amnesty International also said that "Russia is guilty of some the most egregious war crimes" it had seen in decades. The director of Amnesty's crisis response program, Tirana Hassan, said that after bombing civilian targets, the Russian warplanes "loop around" for a second attack to target the humanitarian workers and civilians who are trying to help those have been injured in the first sortie.[234]
In February 2016, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported extensive use of cluster munitions by Syria and Russia, in violation of United Nations resolution 2139 of 22 February 2014, which demanded that all parties end "indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas". HRW said that "Russian or Syrian forces were responsible for the attacks" and that the munitions were "manufactured in the former Soviet Union or Russia" and that some were of a type that had "not been documented as used in Syria" prior to Russia's involvement in the war, which they claimed, suggested that "either Russian aircraft dropped them or Russian authorities recently provided the Syrian government with more cluster munitions, or both".[12] HRW also noted that while neither Russia nor Syria are parties to the Cluster Munitions Convention, the use of such munitions contradicts statements issued by the Syrian government that they would refrain from using them.[12] Russian indiscriminate bombings against civilians, using banned cluster bombs or firebombing, were often deemed as a violation of international law, mostly during the battle of Aleppo[14][13] and siege of Eastern Ghouta.[235] Several parallels were drawn between the 2016 destructions in Aleppo with those from Grozny in 2000,[92] described by some as indicating a joint policy of "take no prisoners".[93] Between May and July 2019, heavy Russian bombardments killed 544 civilians in the assault on Idlib.[236] On 22 July 2019, the Ma'arrat al-Numan market bombing killed 43 civilians.[237] On 16 August 2019, Russian fighter jets perpetrated an airstrike on Hass refugee camp, killing 20 civilians.[238][239]
On 6 March 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a public report confirming that the Atarib market bombing was perpetrated by the Russian military. A Russian fixed-wing aircraft using unguided weapons, including blast weapons, were used against this location. The report concluded that using such heavy weapons on densely populated civilian areas may amount to a war crime.[240][241] On 2 February 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report on the battle of Aleppo, confirming that Russia used cluster and incendiary weapons. It concluded that their use on densely populated area in eastern Aleppo "amounts to the use of an inherently indiscriminate weapon, constituting the war crime of indiscriminate attacks in a civilian populated area".[16]
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that Russian air strikes and artillery shells have killed 18,000 people, including nearly 8,000 civilians, in Syria by 1 October 2018.[242]
On 27 October 2021, the UN experts of the Human Rights Council warned that Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group "violently harassed and intimidated civilians, including peacekeepers, journalists, aid workers and minorities in the Central African Republic". It called on the government of the Central African Republic to sever all ties with the Wagner Group.[243][244]
Examples of crimes believed to have been committed by Wagner Group members in the Central African Republic include the Aïgbado massacre,[245]killing of 12 unarmed men near Bossangoa on 21 July 2021, and beating and holding suspected rebels in inhuman conditions in an open hole at a national army base in Alindao between June and August 2021.[246]
In April 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that Russian mercenaries, believed to be members of the Wagner Group, had committed atrocities against hundreds of civilians in Mali, alongside members of the Malian Armed Forces. According to the NGO, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, as many as 456 civilians died in nine incidents involving Malian forces and Wagner fighters, between January and mid-April 2022. The largest single atrocity was committed by Russian and Malian forces in the Moura massacre, where around 300 civilian men were killed on 23 March 2022.[247][248][249]
Legal proceedings
Regional
The Russian government denied accountability in its local courts. While thousands of investigations were undertaken, only one person was convicted for crimes against the Chechens in the Chechen wars—Yuri Budanov, convicted by a Russian court of kidnapping and murder of Elza Kungaeva and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003[250]—which led Amnesty International to conclude that there is "no accountability" and that a Russian "lack of prosecution has resulted in a climate of impunity".[251]
On 29 March 2005 Sergey Lapin was sentenced to 11 years for torture of Chechen student Zelimkhan Murdalov in police custody, who disappeared since.[252] In December 2007, Lt Yevgeny Khudyakov and Lt Sergei Arakcheyev were sentenced to 17 and 15 years for killing three Chechen construction workers near a Grozny checkpoint in January 2003.[253]
On 24 May 2018, after extensive comparative research, the Dutch investigation concluded that the Buk that shot down the 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 came from the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade in Kursk.[254] In a statement by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs of 5 July 2017, it was announced that several countries will prosecute any suspects identified in the downing of flight MH17 in the Netherlands and under Dutch law.[255] A future treaty between the Netherlands and Ukraine will make it possible for the Netherlands to prosecute in the cases of all 298 victims, regardless of their nationality. This treaty was signed on 7 July 2017.[256] On 19 June 2019, Dutch prosecutors charged four people over the deaths in the MH17 crash: three Russians—Igor Strelkov, a former FSB employee; Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov; former GRU operatives—and one Ukrainian—Leonid Kharchenko—associated with the Donetsk People's Republic.[257][258][259] On 17 November 2022, a Dutch court found Girkin, Dubinsky and Kharchenko guilty and sentenced them in absentia to a life in prison.[260]
On 29 August 2003, a Dutch court (Rechtbank's Gravenhage) found that the Samashki massacre of 250 Chechen civilians was a crime against humanity.[261] On 9 November 2021, Ukraine authorities arrested Denis Kulikovsky, a senior warden of the Izoliatsiia detention center in Donetsk People's Republic, where prisoners were tortured.[262]
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia since 2000, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu are both accused of war crimes
On 13 May 2022, Ukrainian authorities started their first war crimes trial involving the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin was indicted for killing an unarmed civilian in the Sumy Oblast. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.[266] On 31 May, a Kyiv court sentenced two Russian soldiers to 11 1/2 years each for firing artillery on two villages in the Kharkiv Oblast.[267] On 8 August 2022, Russian soldier Mikhailo Kulikov was sentenced to 10 years in prison for firing from his tank at an apartment building on the outskirts of Chernihiv.[268] On 29 September 2022 Russian Lieutenant Serhiy Steiner was sentenced in absentia to 9 years in prison by a Ukrainian court for looting and destruction of civilian property in the village of Lukyanivka.[269] On 23 December 2022, a Ukrainian court sentenced four Russian soldiers to 11 years in prison for abducting and torturing three residents of Borova who formed an Anti-Terrorist Unit.[270] On 3 March 2023, a Ukrainian court sentenced a Russian pilot to 12 years in prison for dropping eight bombs on the Kharkiv TV and radio station.[271] By December 2022, Ukraine identified more than 600suspected war criminals from Russia, including Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.[272]
On 23 November 2022, the European Parliament designated Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, declaring that its widespread military attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, hospitals, schools and shelters violate international law and endanger Ukrainian civilians in winter.[277] On 19 January 2023, the European Parliament also adopted a resolution recommending the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute Putin and Belarus' leader Alexander Lukashenko for war crimes.[278]
In its 2024 report on the siege of Mariupol, Human Rights Watch published a list of 10 people who should be held responsible for war crimes due to their command responsibility:[279]
Vladimir Putin, president of the Russia and commander-in-chief of the military
Sergei Shoigu, defense minister and military second-in-command
Sergei Rudskoy, first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces
On 21 January 2021, the ECHR also separately found Russia guilty of murder, torture, looting and destruction of homes in Georgia, as well as preventing the return of 20,000 displaced Georgians to their territory.[22][23][24]
When the International Criminal Court (ICC) started to investigate Russia's annexation of Crimea for possible violations of international law, Russia withdrew its membership on 16 November 2016.[27] Nonetheless, in its preliminary 2017 report, the ICC found that "the situation within the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol would amount to an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation" as well that it "factually amounts to an ongoing state of occupation".[280] It further found that there is credible evidence that at least 10 people have disappeared and are believed to have been killed on Crimea for opposing the change of its status.[281] In January 2016, the ICC also opened an investigation into possible war crimes perpetrated during the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.[282]
On 28 February 2022, the ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan announced that he will launch an investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine.[283] On 17 March 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for war crimes of deportation and illegal transfer of civilians (children) from occupied Ukraine to Russia.[284] Human Rights Watch welcomed the indictment, saying it "advances justice".[285] Amnesty International also lauded ICC's decision, recommending that the indictment should be expanded to include many other war crimes as well.[286]
Ukraine brought a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Russia. On 16 March 2022, a ruling was reached, and the ICJ ordered Russia to "immediately suspend the military operations" in Ukraine.[292]
Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with Georgia to its south; with the Russian republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia–Alania to its east, north, and west; and with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.
The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a struggle for independence waged by the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria against the Russian Federation from 11 December 1994 to 31 August 1996. This conflict was preceded by the battle of Grozny in November 1994, during which Russia covertly sought to overthrow the new Chechen government. Following the intense Battle of Grozny in 1994–1995, which concluded with a victory for the Russian federal forces, Russia's subsequent efforts to establish control over the remaining lowlands and mountainous regions of Chechnya were met with fierce resistance and frequent surprise raids by Chechen guerrillas. The recapture of Grozny in 1996 played a part in the Khasavyurt Accord (ceasefire), and the signing of the 1997 Russia–Chechnya Peace Treaty.
The Second Chechen War took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 to April 2009.
OMON is a system of military special police units within the Armed Forces of Russia. It previously operated within the structures of the Soviet and Russian Ministries of Internal Affairs (MVD). Originating as the special forces unit of the Soviet Militsiya in 1988, it has played major roles in several armed conflicts during and following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The First Battle of Grozny was the Russian Army's invasion and subsequent conquest of the Chechen capital, Grozny, during the early months of the First Chechen War. The attack would last from December 1994 to March 1995, which resulted in the military occupation of the city by the Russian Army and rallied most of the Chechen nation around the government of Dzhokhar Dudayev.
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, known simply as Ichkeria, and also known as Chechnya, is a former de facto state that controlled most of the former Checheno-Ingush ASSR from 1991 to 2000 and has been a government-in-exile since.
The 141st Special Motorized Regiment, colloquially known as the Kadyrovites or the Akhmat special forces unit, is a paramilitary organization in Chechnya, Russia, that serves as the protection of the Head of the Chechen Republic. The term Kadyrovtsy is commonly used in Chechnya to refer to any armed, ethnically-Chechen men under the control of Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, although nominally they are under the umbrella of the National Guard of Russia. As of 2023, the regiment's official commander was Adam Delimkhanov, a close ally of Kadyrov.
The 1999–2000 battle of Grozny or Operation Wolf Hunt was the siege and assault of the Chechen capital Grozny by Russian forces, lasting from late 1999 to early 2000. This siege and assault of the Chechen capital resulted in the widespread devastation of Grozny. In 2003, the United Nations designated Grozny as the most destroyed city on Earth due to the extensive damage it suffered. The battle had a devastating impact on the civilian population. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 8,000 civilians were killed during the siege, making it the bloodiest episode of the Second Chechen War.
In Chechnya, mass graves containing hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the beginning of the Chechen wars in 1994. As of June 2008, there were 57 registered locations of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International, thousands may be buried in unmarked graves including up to 5,000 civilians who disappeared since the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999. In 2008, the largest mass grave found to date was uncovered in Grozny, containing some 800 bodies from the First Chechen War in 1995. Russia's general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.
Human rights violations were committed by the warring sides during the second war in Chechnya. Both Russian officials and Chechen rebels have been regularly and repeatedly accused of committing war crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, hostage taking, looting, rape, decapitation, and assorted other breaches of the law of war. International and humanitarian organizations, including the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, have criticized both sides of the conflict for blatant and sustained violations of international humanitarian law.
Russia incurred much international criticism for its conduct during the Second Chechen War, which started in 1999. The governments of the United States and other countries condemned deaths and expulsions among civilians. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) passed two resolutions in 2000 and 2001 condemning human rights violations in Chechnya and requiring Russia to set up an independent national commission of inquiry to investigate the matter. However, a third resolution on these lines failed in 2004. The Council of Europe in multiple resolutions and statements between 2003 and 2007 called on Russia to cease human rights violations. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) between 2005 and 2007 conducted legal cases brought by Chechens against the Russian government, and in many of these cases held Russia responsible for deaths, disappearances and torture.
The Battle of Grozny of August 1996, also known as Operation Jihad or Operation Zero Option, when Chechen fighters regained and then kept control of Chechnya's capital Grozny in a surprise raid. The Russian Federation had conquered the city in a previous battle for Grozny that ended in February 1995 and subsequently posted a large garrison of federal and republican Ministry of the Interior (MVD) troops in the city.
The Novye Aldi massacre was the mass murder of Chechen civilians on February 5, 2000, in which Russian forces went on a cleansing operation (zachistka), summarily executing dozens. The village had been cluster-bombed a day prior to the massacre, and local residents urged to come out for inspection the next day. Upon entering the village, Russian forces shot their victims with automatic fire at close range. The killings were accompanied by looting, rape, arson and robbery. As a result of the deadly rampage by Russian forces, up to 82 civilians were killed in the spree. Houses of civilians were burnt in an attempt to destroy evidence of summary executions and other crimes. Looting took place on a large scale and organised manner.
The reported bombing of Katyr-Yurt (Chechnya) occurred on February 4, 2000, when Russian forces bombed the village of Katyr-Yurt and afterwards a refugee convoy under white flags. The village was also previously bombed by the Russians in 1995 and in 1996.
The Grozny ballistic missile attack was a wave of Russian ballistic missile strikes on the Chechen capital Grozny on October 21, 1999, early in the Second Chechen War. The attack killed at least 118 people according to initial reports, mostly civilians, or at least 137 immediate dead according to the HALO Trust count. Hundreds of people were also injured, many of whom later died.
The insurgency in the North Caucasus was a low-level armed conflict between Russia and militants associated with the Caucasus Emirate and, from June 2015, the Islamic State, in the North Caucasus. It followed the (Russian-proclaimed) official end of the decade-long Second Chechen War on 16 April 2009. It attracted volunteers from the MENA region, Western Europe, and Central Asia. The Russian legislation considers the Second Chechen War and the insurgency described in this article as the same "counter-terrorist operations on the territory of the North Caucasus region".
Filtration camps, also known as concentration camps, were camps used by the Russian forces for their mass internment centers during the First Chechen War and then again during the Second Chechen War.
The Search is a 2014 French drama film written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius and produced by Hazanavicius and Thomas Langmann. The film was inspired by the Oscar-winning post-Holocaust drama also called The Search, directed by Fred Zinnemann, in which a compassionate westerner helps a lost child find what is left of his family amidst the chaotic flood of post-war civilian refugees. In the 1948 film, the backdrop is post-war Berlin; The Search (2014) takes place in the "front lines of the Russian invasion of Chechnya" during the first year of the Second Chechen War (1999–2009). The Search was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.
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.
References
↑ Oksana Dudko (2022). "A conceptual limbo of genocide: Russian rhetoric, mass atrocities in Ukraine, and the current definition's limits". Revue Canadienne des Slavistes. 64 (2–3): 133–145. doi:10.1080/00085006.2022.2106691. S2CID252316182. Sergeitsev's article is a significant example of how the Kremlin's claims that it is preventing genocide against Russian Ukrainians have transformed into open admissions about perpetrating genocide in Ukraine. As Susan Smith-Peter points out, we have now encountered a kind of twenty-first-century 'postmodern genocide': while accusing Ukraine of perpetrating genocide, Russia uses genocidal rhetoric and commits genocidal crimes itself, and, moreover, it 'does not feel the need to hide [them].' Indeed, Sergeitsev's explicit call for Russians to destroy Ukraine is shocking. Siding with Russia's state propaganda rhetoric about "Nazi Ukraine," Sergeitsev proposes to liquidate Ukraine as a state, including the very usage of the name 'Ukraine,' because 'Ukraine, as history has shown, is impossible as a nation-state, and attempts to 'build' one naturally lead to Nazism.'
1 2 OHCHR & 2 February 2017, p.12... «Between July and December 2016, Syrian and Russian forces carried out daily air strikes, claiming hundreds of lives and reducing hospitals, schools and markets to rubble... Syrian and Russian air forces conducted daily air strikes in Aleppo throughout most of the period under review, exclusively employing, as far as the Commission could determine, unguided air-delivered munitions»...
↑ Szonert-Binienda, Maria (2012). "Was Katyn a Genocide?"(PDF). Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. 44 (3). scholarlycommons.law.case.edu: 633–717. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
↑ Haque, Mozammel (1999). "Genocide in Chechnya and the World Community". Pakistan Institute of International Affairs. 52 (4): 15–29. JSTOR41394437.
↑ Jones, Adam (2011). "Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus". Journal of Genocide Research. 13 (1): 199–202. doi:10.1080/14623528.2011.554083. S2CID71276051.
↑ Baiev, Kh.; etal. (with Ruth et Nicholas Daniloff) (2005). Le serment tchétchène: Un chirurgien dans la guerre (in French). Translated by Baranger, L. Paris: Jean-Claude Lattès. pp.167, 312–313, 325, 413. ISBN2-7096-2644-6.
↑ Sylvaine, P.; Alexandra, S. (23 March 2000). "Grozny, ville fantôme". L'Express (in French). Retrieved 8 August 2022.
↑ Allaman, J. (2000). La guerre de Tchétchénie ou l'irrésistible ascension de Vladimir Poutine (in French). Genève: Georg Éditeur. p.114. ISBN2-8257-0703-1.
↑ Sarah Reinke: Schleichender Völkermord in Tschetschenien. Verschwindenlassen – ethnische Verfolgung in Russland – Scheitern der internationalen Politik. Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, 2005, page 8 (PDFArchived 12 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine )
↑ CHIFU, Nantoi, Sushko, Iulian, Oazu, Oleksandr (2009). The Russian Georgian War A trilateral cognitive institutional approach of the crisis decision-making process.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ "UN strongly condemns Russian strikes in Odesa, Ukraine". UN News. 24 July 2023. Retrieved 24 July 2023. Furthermore, the attacks contradict recent statements by Russian authorities concerning precautions taken to spare World Heritage sites in Ukraine, including their buffer zones, the agency said, adding that intentional destruction of cultural sites may amount to a war crime.
Callaway, Rhonda L.; Harrelson-Stephens, Julie (2010). "How to Win Enemies and Influence Terrorism". In Reuveny, Rafael; Thompson, William R. (eds.). Coping with Terrorism: Origins, Escalation, Counterstrategies, and Responses. Suny Press. ISBN978-1-4384-3313-4.
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