The Vienna-based security agency has blamed Russia in general targeting hospitals, schools, residential buildings and water supply facilities in its military operations, leading to civilian deaths and injuries. “Overall, the report documents the list of inhumane acts committed by Russian forces in Ukraine,” US Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter said in a speech on Wednesday. “This includes evidence of direct targeting of civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, executions, looting and forced deportation of civilians to Russia.” The report concluded that the airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol was a Russian attack. “According to Russian explanations, the attack must have been deliberate,” the report said of the March 9 attack on the Maternity Hospital and Children’s Hospital in Mariupol. “No effective warning was given and no time limit was set. “Therefore, this attack is a clear violation of international humanitarian law and those responsible for it have committed a war crime.” Striking Mariupol, Ukraine, shaken by hospital strike, says Russia’s attack continues as corpses pile up While the Russian government claimed that the hospital was used for military purposes, Carpenter said, “the mission categorically rejected these allegations.” OSCE experts did not travel to Ukraine, but conducted data from a variety of sources, including open source material and accounts by human rights groups and non-profit groups. The OSCE report also found that the attack on the Mariupol Drama Theater, where hundreds of civilians were sheltered as the building was reduced to rubble, “was a clear violation of international humanitarian law and those who ordered or carried it out committed a crime.” Overall, the investigation identified “clear patterns of violations of international humanitarian law by Russian forces in their conduct of hostilities,” the report said. However, he added that while the report “was able to contribute to a first collection and analysis of facts, more detailed investigations are needed, in particular as regards the determination of individual criminal responsibility for war crimes”. The report covered alleged abuses from February 24, the day Russia invaded, until April 1. It did not include a rocket attack last week on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that killed more than 50 people, including children, or atrocities recently reported in Bucha, a suburb of the capital, Kiev. The 110-page report also found “credible evidence that such violations of even the most fundamental human rights have been committed, especially in areas under effective Russian control.” The OSCE launched its investigation last month following a vote by most of its member states, including Ukraine, to conduct an exploratory mission. The United States is part of the 57-member body – as are Russia and its ally Belarus. Russia and Belarus were among 12 countries that did not vote in favor of the revision and have not yet commented publicly on the report. The OSCE’s inquiry began with a vote on the Moscow Mechanism, named after a 1991 conference in the Russian capital that allowed Member States to send independent experts on missions to another Member State to resolve human rights issues. and democracy. “, According to the OSCE. Ukrainian officials said hundreds of civilians had been briefly executed in Bukha and that they had evidence of torture, mutilation and shootings at close range. The alleged events in Bukha – which took place as Ukraine recaptured more territory and Russian forces began moving from areas near Kyiv to the east and south of the country – led to the suspension of Russia by the UN Human Rights Council. Russia has claimed that such killings were “directed” or “fake”. The OSCE report found that the events in Bukha deserved “a serious international investigation, on the spot, with medical examiners” and said that “the evidence points to a major war crime and a crime against humanity committed by Russian forces” in the northwestern city. Kiev. International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan described Ukraine as a “crime scene” on Wednesday during a visit to Bhutan as his team gathered evidence. In Bucha, a mass search for corpses left by Russian occupiers “This report is only the first of many possible,” said Neil Bush, the UK’s ambassador to the OSCE. “As an international community, we must hold those responsible for the atrocities committed in Ukraine, including military commanders and others in the Putin regime, accountable.” The report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights also said that women and children have been particularly hard hit by Russia’s abuses. The body also noted Ukraine’s role in allegations of ill-treatment and treatment of prisoners of war. “The violations committed by the Russian Federation, however, are much greater in nature and scale,” he said. President Biden on Tuesday cited the killings in Ukraine as a sign that Russia was committing “genocide,” a term previously avoided by US officials. He later told reporters that he had deliberately used the word in his speech, although he added that he would “let lawyers decide internationally whether he meets the conditions or not”. But he said: “It certainly seems so to me.” President Biden spoke about why he called the war in Ukraine “genocide” on April 12. “It definitely looks like that to me,” he said. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post) The war in Ukraine has been going on for more than seven weeks, with 1,892 dead and 2,558 wounded, according to an incomplete United Nations count. Ukrainian officials say the actual number of dead civilians is many thousands higher. About 4.6 million people have fled the country as refugees. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the war a “tragedy” on Tuesday, but insisted that Russia had “no choice” in invading its western neighbor. He told reporters that the “special military operation” in Ukraine was proceeding as planned and would continue until its goals were met. Landmines create a deadly legacy for Ukraine and possibly beyond The Moscow Mechanism has been used nine times in the past by the OSCE, first in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. It most recently referred to Belarus in 2020, when 17 Member States called for an investigation into alleged human rights violations there. . The United States, Germany, Britain and France were among the member states that invoked the mechanism last month. Earlier in April, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba called for Russia to be excluded from the OSCE for “unwarranted aggression.”
