The fact that Russian Telegram channels, which were set up by the perpetrators of the attacks or people associated with Russian UAV units, distributed hundreds of videos of the killings or injuries of Ukrainian civilians, is tantamount to a war crime. Because it is an attack on human dignity.
This was stated by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine in its latest update to the Human Rights Council.
These channels also published threatening posts announcing new attacks and urging people to leave their homes.
In May of this year, the Commission concluded that the drone attacks in the Kherson region were large-scale and systematic, therefore qualifying them as crimes against humanity in the form of murder.
In addition, the evidence collected confirms that similar attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure also occurred in Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions.
The report states that the circumstances of the attacks in settlements located along the right bank of the Dnipro River indicate the intent of their perpetrators to kill, maim, and destroy.
The Russian army is shelling these three regions from positions on the left bank of the Dnipro River at a distance of more than 300 kilometers.
To do this, they use drones equipped with real-time surveillance and tracking systems. These drones often chased their victims over long distances and dropped explosives on them, causing deaths and injuries.
In addition, the Commission writes, it also recorded strikes on ambulances and other emergency services, preventing them from reaching their intended destinations.
In the report, the Commission writes that these attacks have a devastating impact on the civilian population of the affected areas. They have made entire settlements uninhabitable. Essential services and shops have ceased to function. The terror has forced thousands of people to flee their homes.
“Buses stopped running, shops were closed, drones were everywhere — if earlier there were a few drones flying a day, by that time there were already three, four, five in the air every hour. It became impossible to go outside,” said a resident of the village of Antonivka, who left it after numerous attacks.
The Commission believes that the actions of the Russian military can be considered a crime against humanity — the forced eviction of people. The Commission intends to return to this issue in its report to the General Assembly in October of this year.
The report says that the investigation into short-range drone strikes, as well as deportations and forced displacements, shows that Russian authorities are acting in a coordinated and organized manner to seize new territory, consolidate control over already controlled lands, and force local residents to flee.
In addition, the Commission continues to investigate the practice of deportation and transfer of adult civilians from the occupied areas of the Zaporizhzhia region.
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