A senior UN official has issued a vehement condemnation of Russia's "intolerable" missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and called on all sides in the war in Ukraine to refrain from summary executions of prisoners of war.
"The devastating impacts of the patterns of missile strikes by Russian forces and the allegations of summary executions of prisoners of war show all too plainly the intolerable human cost of this, and any other, armed conflict," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Friday. "They are a stark reminder of why international law exists and why it must be fully complied with to prevent a descent into utter inhumanity and negation of the very idea of our human rights."
According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), Russian missile strikes in Kyiv last Wednesday killed at least eight Ukrainian civilians, including one girl, and injured 45 others, including seven children. The HRMMU also noted that on the same day a two-day old child was killed by a missile strike on a hospital in Vilniansk, in the Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine.
In total, the HRMMU calculates that at least 77 civilians have been killed since Russia launched its latest barrage of missile attacks across Ukraine on 10 October. The number of direct and indirect casualties from the shelling is also expected to increase significantly over the coming winter months: last week Hans Kluge, the World Health Organisation's Regional Director for Europe, claimed that Russia's attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure mean that the coming "winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine".
Summary executions
Among some of the videos that HRMMU has examined are several that surfaced over the last two weeks on social media. These include video clips from the village of Makiivka which shows the apparent surrender of Russian forces or Russian-affiliated armed groups; a man opening fire at Ukrainian soldiers; and subsequently the dead bodies of some 12 Russian soldiers.
Türk was careful to note, however, that "actual circumstances of the full sequence of events must be investigated to the fullest extent possible", and highlighted the fact that the Ukrainian authorities themselves "have opened a criminal investigation."
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Moreover, Türk emphasised that the summary execution of any combatant who has already surrendered constitutes a war crime. "Since Russia began its armed attack on Ukraine in February, there have been numerous allegations of summary executions by both parties of prisoners of war and others no longer participating in the fighting."
“I also call on the parties to issue clear instructions to their forces that there should be no retaliation, no reprisals, against those they take as prisoners of war and to ensure that these instructions are fully complied with. The rules governing armed conflict set out in the Geneva Conventions demand this," concluded the UN official.
