A mission of experts set up by Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe (OSCE) nations has found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, an initial report by the mission said on Wednesday, CGTN reports.
The mission was set up last month by 45 of the OSCE’s 57 participating countries to look into possible offences, including war crimes in Ukraine, and to pass on information to bodies such as international tribunals, a move that was opposed by Russia.
“The mission found clear patterns of international humanitarian law violations by the Russian forces,” the report said, citing failures to take necessary precautions, act proportionately or spare sites like schools and hospitals. It said it had also found some violations by Ukraine, particularly in its treatment of prisoners of war, but it said Russia’s violations “are by far larger in nature and scale”.
Despite Russian denials, the report said a March 9 attack on the Mariupol Maternity House and Children’s Hospital was carried out by Russia and those responsible had committed a war crime.
It also said the attack on Mariupol’s Drama Theater on March 16, in which local Ukrainian officials say as many as 300 people may have been killed, was a war crime.
“The Mission is not able to conclude whether the Russian attack on Ukraine per se may qualify as a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population,” it said, referring to the context in which crimes like murder and rape constitute crimes against humanity.
“It however holds that some patterns of violent acts violating International Human Rights Law, which have been repeatedly documented in the course of the conflict, such as targeted killing, enforced disappearance or abductions of civilians… are likely to meet this qualification,” it said.
“Any single violent act of this type, committed as part of such an attack and with the knowledge of it, would then constitute a crime against humanity.”
Britain and the European Union (EU) announced coordinated sanctions against pro-Russian separatists, as well as more oligarchs and their relatives, on Wednesday.
The UK government said that in coordination with the EU, it is sanctioning “178 Russian separatists” in eastern Ukraine, in addition to six more oligarchs and their families and employees.
“This comes after multiple reports last week that Russia was barbarically targeting civilians in those regions,” Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement.
The latest sanctions include Alexander Ananchenko and Sergey Kozlov, who are described by the UK Foreign Office as “self-styled” leaders of the Russia-backed so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
“In the wake of horrific rocket attacks on civilians in Eastern Ukraine, we are today sanctioning those who prop up the illegal breakaway regions and are complicit in atrocities against the Ukrainian people,” said UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
“We will continue to target all those who aid and abet Putin’s war.”
Britain is taking part in an international effort to punish Russia with asset freezes, travel bans and sanctions, after President Valdimir Putin ordered the assault on Ukraine on February 24.
Those sanctions have so far targeted Russian defense, trade and transport companies.
Truss said the latest package would include extending a UK import ban on Russian goods, to include iron and steel from Thursday.
“We will not rest in our mission to stop Putin’s war machine in its tracks,” Truss said.
London has sanctioned more than 1,400 individuals and businesses linked to Russia – including more than 100 oligarchs and their family members – since Moscow’s military campaign began.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that more than a thousand Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered in Mariupol, the strategic eastern port that has been besieged by Moscow’s troops for over a month.
“In the city of Mariupol… 1,026 Ukrainian servicemen of the 36th marine brigade voluntarily laid down their arms and surrendered,” the ministry said in a statement.
Among the troops were 162 officers and 47 were women, the ministry added. More than 100 were wounded.
If the Russians seize the Azovstal industrial district, where the marines have been holed up, they will be in full control of Mariupol, the lynchpin between Russian-held areas to the west and east providing a land corridor for troops and supplies.
It would be the first major city to fall to Russian forces since the conflict started on February 24.
Ukraine’s general staff said that Russian forces were proceeding with attacks on Azovstal and the port. However, Ukraine’s defense ministry spokesman said he had no information about any surrender.
Thousands of civilians are believed to have died in the city, which has seen some of the most intense fightings in the conflict.
