One year after Bucha, a grim reminder of Russia's 'war crimes' in Ukraine

Paris: Russia has been accused of thousands of war crimes in Ukraine, including indiscriminate bombings, rapes, torture, summary executions and the unlawful deportation of children to Russia, over which President Vladimir Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Ukraine has also been accused of abuses, but on a much smaller scale.

AFP looks at some of the worst atrocities to date:

Bucha bodies

Russian troops are accused of massacring civilians in the quiet commuter town of Bucha, which they occupied for more than a month in early 2022.

AFP on 2 April was the first international news organisation to report on the horrors when a team of reporters discovered a street strewn with bodies of civilians, some with their hands tied behind their backs.

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According to Ukrainian estimates, some 400 bodies of civilians were found in Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, and more than 1,000 across the region, many in mass graves dug by locals to bury the dead as the fighting raged.

Mariupol theatre

Russian forces bombed a theatre in the besieged southeastern port city of Mariupol on 16 March, 2022 where scores of civilians had taken refuge.

At the time local authorities said some 300 people had died, but in a report in June 2022, Amnesty International revised the toll, saying it believed "at least a dozen people" were killed and "likely many more" in what it called a "clear war crime".

Mass grave in Izyum

Ukraine said in September 2022 it had found more than 440 graves dating between March and September in a mass burial site in Izyum, a town in eastern Ukraine recaptured from Russia.

Rescuers work among rubble at a psychiatric hospital, which was hit by an enemy shell, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in the village of Oskil, Izyum district, Kharkiv region, Ukraine. File image/Reuters

Ukrainian officials said 30 of the bodies showed signs of torture.

Attacks on civilians

Throughout the war Russia has been accused of indiscriminate bombardments of civilian areas.

Some of the deadliest attacks include a rocket strike on the eastern Kramatorsk railway station on 8 April, 2022 that killed around 60 civilians and a missile strike on 14 January, 2023 on an apartment building in the Ukrainian central city of Dnipro that left 46 people dead.

Deportation of children

The ICC on 17 March, 2023 announced an arrest warrant for Putin on the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children to Russian territory.

More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the start of the war, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly put in institutions and foster homes.

Some 400 bodies of civilians were found in Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, and more than 1,000 across the region, many in mass graves dug by locals to bury the dead as the fighting raged. File image/AP

Blackouts

In a bid to destroy morale, Russia has repeatedly hit Ukraine's power grid, leaving millions of people without heating during the freezing winter months.

In a report on 15 March, 2023, a United Nations commission of inquiry on Ukraine listed the attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure among Russia's alleged war crimes.

Rape

Russian forces have been accused of widespread and systemic sexual abuse in Ukraine, with accounts of rapes emerging in newly liberated towns and villages.

AFP has spoken to several women who said they were raped by Russian soldiers.

Also read: How women in the Russian army are being forced into sex slavery in Ukraine

The UN's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten told AFP in October 2022 that rapes and sexual assaults were part of a "deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims".

Summary executions

The UN said on 24 March it was "deeply concerned" by what it said were summary executions of prisoners of war by both Russian and Ukrainian forces.

A video of an unarmed Ukrainian prisoner of war smoking a last cigarette in a trench and then saying "Glory to Ukraine" before being shot dead by suspected Russian soldiers caused outrage when it surfaced on social media earlier this month.

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