There is constant Russian denial. And there are the “appalling” revelations.
The invasion of Ukraine follows, since February 24, a “clear pattern” of violation of “international humanitarian law” and “human rights” by the Russian armed forces, accused of “deliberately targeting civilians” .
This is the conclusion reached by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in a report of a hundred pages unveiled on Wednesday.
The international organization based in Vienna, Austria, also says that it has collected “credible evidence” of these violations “of the most fundamental human rights committed mainly in areas under the effective control of Russia”, and mentions including “targeted killings”, “abduction of civilians”, cases of “torture” and “degrading treatment”.
While saying it is “dismayed” by these findings, the OSCE also calls for “more in-depth investigations” in order to establish “individual criminal responsibility” for these war crimes.
“Taken together, the report catalogs the inhumanity perpetrated by Russian forces in Ukraine,” US Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter said in a statement released Wednesday. “This includes evidence of direct targeting of civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, summary executions, looting and forced deportation of civilians to Russia. »
“We can talk more and more about genocide”
On the sidelines of the release of this report, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, spoke for the first time on Wednesday of the possibility that a genocide is currently being committed by Russia. “International bodies will officially determine [ce qui se passe en Ukraine]but it is certain that we can speak more and more of genocide, ”declared Mr. Trudeau, who was passing through Laval for an announcement on housing.
“We have seen the atrocities that the Russians, the Russian army and Putin are committing in Ukraine. We have seen this desire to attack civilians, to use sexual violence as a weapon of war. This is totally unacceptable,” he added.
He thus follows in the footsteps of American President Joe Biden, who, on Tuesday, also went further than the usual accusations of war crimes, to now speak of genocide. “It’s becoming more and more obvious that Putin is simply trying to erase the very idea that someone can be Ukrainian,” said the latter by way of justification.
The OSCE, of which Canada is a member, mandated an independent mission last March which relied on evidence gathered on the spot by multiple sources, both official, NGOs and even national and international investigators. , to write his report.
The Kremlin denies everything
On Wednesday, the Kremlin denied for the umpteenth time being behind the atrocities revealed every day since the departure of Russian troops from around kyiv, always describing accusations of civilian murders as “false information”. Statements contradicted by the facts brought to light by the General Prosecutor of Ukraine and international investigators in the cities of Boutcha and Borodianka, in particular, where the toll of abuses committed during the Russian occupation continues to grow .
“Ukraine is a crime scene. We are here because we have good reason to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court are being committed. We must pierce the fog of war to get to the truth,” International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan summed up on Wednesday during a visit to Boutcha.
He indicated that a forensic team from the ICC was also preparing to work on the spot in order to “really separate truth from fiction”.
Fiction, the OSCE sees more on the Russian side after the attack on the Mariupol maternity hospital in early March, justified according to the Kremlin by the use of this building for military purposes. ” The mission [de l’organisation internationale] categorically rejected these allegations”, said Ambassador Carpenter, commenting on a report which rather speaks of “a deliberate attack on this children’s hospital” and which, over 110 pages, details the “clear cases” of an invasion which widely targets “hospitals, schools, residential buildings and water and electricity supply infrastructure”, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries.
“It is clear that tens of thousands of properties have been damaged or destroyed with direct and indirect disastrous effects on civilians,” laments the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in its report.
If Russia had respected its obligations under international law after invading Ukraine on February 24, “the number of civilians killed or injured would have been significantly lower”, can we read.
According to a preliminary and incomplete count by the United Nations, the war in Ukraine has left 1,892 dead and 2,558 injured over the past seven weeks – an underestimated figure of “several thousand”, according to the Ukrainian authorities. Around 4.6 million people have also gone into exile.
Rape as a weapon of war
The organization also indicates that women and children have been particularly affected by abuses committed by Russia. Accusations that echo those made the day before by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who denounced “hundreds of rapes” committed by Russian soldiers in occupied cities, “including underage girls and very small children” .
On Tuesday, the head of human rights in Ukraine, Lyudmyla Denisova, reported on the BBC the case of 25 young girls and women “aged between 14 and 24 years old repeatedly raped” by Russian soldiers in the sub- floor of a residence in Boutcha during the occupation. “The Russian soldiers told them that they would rape them to the point that they never wanted to have sexual contact with a man again, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children,” she said. commented.
With Agence France-Presse and La Presse canadienne