Amnesty accuses Moscow of war crimes in Ukraine

KYIV • Amnesty International yesterday accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, saying attacks on Kharkiv - many using banned cluster bombs - had killed hundreds of civilians.

"The repeated bombardments of residential neighbourhoods in Kharkiv are indiscriminate attacks which killed and injured hundreds of civilians and, as such, constitute war crimes," the rights group said in a report on Ukraine's second-biggest city. "This is true both for the strikes carried out using cluster (munitions) as well as those conducted using other types of unguided rockets and unguided artillery shells," it said.

"The continued use of such inaccurate explosive weapons in populated civilian areas, in the knowledge that they are repeatedly causing large numbers of civilian casualties, may even amount to directing attacks against the civilian population."

Amnesty said it had uncovered proof in Kharkiv of the repeated use by Russian forces of 9N210 and 9N235 cluster bombs and scatterable land mines, all of which are banned under international conventions.

Cluster bombs release dozens of bomblets or grenades in mid-air, scattering them indiscriminately over hundreds of square metres.

Scatterable land mines combine "the worst possible attributes of cluster munitions and anti-personnel land mines", Amnesty said in its report.

Unguided artillery shells have a margin of error of over 100m.

"People have been killed in their homes and in the streets, in playgrounds and in cemeteries, while queuing for humanitarian aid or shopping for food and medicine," said Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera.

Kharkiv's Military Administration told Amnesty that 606 civilians had been killed and 1,248 wounded in the region since the conflict began.

Russia and Ukraine are not parties to the international conventions banning cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines.

But Amnesty stressed that "international humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks and the use of weapons that are indiscriminate by nature".

One of the witnesses Amnesty spoke to had survived cancer, only to lose both her legs in a Russian cluster bomb attack.

Ms Olena Sorokina, 57, was outside her building when flying shrapnel hit her. She lost one leg instantly and the other had to be amputated later.

A neighbour with her was killed on the spot. The latter's daughter said the shrapnel tore through the building. "Even if mum had been inside her home, she would have been hit. She stood no chance in the face of such bombing," she said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE