The top UN rights official said on Friday that international humanitarian law had been “tossed aside’’ in Ukraine and that Russia’s invasion of its neighbour had led to a horror story of abuses.
The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Office said there was mounting evidence of war crimes carried out by Russian forces, who were accused of indiscriminately shelling and bombing populated areas, along with destroying hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure.
In addition to indiscriminate attacks and the denial of medical aid, there were hundreds of reports of arbitrary killings and sexual violence since Russia launched its attack nearly two months ago.
“Our work to date has detailed a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians,” Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
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Bachelet’s office has confirmed 5,264 civilian casualties, 2,345 killed and 2,919 injured since the war began on Feb. 24.
“We know the actual numbers are going to be much higher as the horrors inflicted in areas of intense fighting, such as Mariupol, come to light,’’ she said.
“The scale of summary executions of civilians in areas previously occupied by Russian forces are also emerging,’’ pointing to the well-documented massacre of residents in the Kiev suburb of Bucha.
There had been 75 allegations made to the UN office from across Ukraine of sexual violence against women, men and children, the majority in the Kiev region.
The office had counted 114 confirmed attacks on medical establishments in Ukraine. But that number, too, is presumed to be higher.
The April 8 attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk, in which cluster munitions killed 60 civilians, showed that the principles of international humanitarian law were being ignored, Bachelet added.
There had been intense focus on the plight of Mariupol for weeks as Russia relentlessly bombarded the strategic south-eastern port city.
New satellite images taken by a private U.S. company and released to multiple media outlets on Thursday, including the New York Times and the BBCwas said to indicate a possible mass grave outside Mariupol.
The satellite photo service Maxar took images over Manhush, which lies about 20 kilometres west of Mariupol.
The reports said they showed a mass grave near a cemetery parallel to the course of the road.
According to a report in The New York Times, which says it has analysed the images, there were about 300 excavated graves there.
They were said to have been created within two weeks between March and April.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had not yet publicly commented on the presumed mass grave.
In recent days, however, Zelensky had spoken of tens of thousands of dead in Mariupol.
Mariupol was encircled by enemy troops shortly after the Russian war began two months ago.
Putin said on Thursday that Russian forces had liberated the city, apart from the sprawling Azovstal steel where the Mariupol’s last Ukrainian defenders are holed up.
Several hundred Ukrainian soldiers remained in bunkers, some of them wounded.
According to Ukrainian officials, about 1,000 civilians were also hunkered down with them.
Putin said earlier on Thursday he wanted the Azovstal site to be blockaded so tight that not even a fly could get in or out but said he was rescinding his earlier order to have the steel plant stormed.
“The Russians are afraid to storm Azovstal, but in doing so they deliberately and cynically do not let civilians out, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram.”
This, she said, was intended to increase the pressure on the defiant Ukrainian soldiers who remained at the plant to surrender.
As reports of fighting continued in the east of Ukraine, European Council President Charles Michel urged Putin to agree to a ceasefire for the upcoming Orthodox Easter during a phone call on Friday.
Michel said on Twitter that he called on Putin to allow immediate humanitarian access and safe passage from Mariupol and other cities under siege.
One senior Russian military commander bluntly outlined Moscow’s ambitions on Friday, saying forces were fighting to completely capture the Donbass region in the east and the south of Ukraine.
Russian news agencies quoted the acting commander of the central military district, Rustam Minnekayev, as saying the goal was to form a land bridge to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
That could lead to Russia having access to Transnistria, the pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova.
Following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kiev area, analysts had assumed this was the Kremlin’s war objective but it was unusual to have it so clearly laid out by the military.(dpa/NAN)
