Human Rights Watch reported that summary executions and war crimes were committed in areas under Russian control

The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday denounced in a report that “summary executions” and “other serious abuses” that could constitute war crimes have been committed in areas of Ukraine under Russian control.

The NGO claims to have documented several cases between 27 February and 14 March in which Russian forces committed what would constitute war crimes against civilians in occupied areas in the Chernigov, Kharkiv and Kiev regions.

According to a statement from the organization, such cases include rape, two summary executions, of six men on one occasion and one on another, and other instances of violence and threats against civilians.

Summary executions documented on the basis of witness interviews took place on 4 March in Bucha, north-west of the capital, and on 27 February in Staryi Bykiv, in the Chernigov region (north).

In the latter case, a neighbor from a nearby town who spoke to eyewitnesses told HRW that while people were sheltering in basements due to mortar fire and soldiers went house to house and took men supposedly for questioning.

“We found them lying with bullet holes in their heads. Their hands were tied behind their backs,” she told the organization “Viktoria”, the mother of one of the six young men executed, adding that the soldiers would not let her collect the body for several days.

In Bucha, a suburb of Kiev, a woman interviewed by HRW recalled that Russian forces gathered neighbors in the square and inspected the identity documents and mobile phones of those present, as well as asking who belonged to the territorial defense forces.

Later they brought five men and ordered them to kneel on the ground. “One of them was shot in the head,” said the woman, adding that the Russian commander told the rest of the neighbors: “We are here to clear you of this scum.”

On the other hand, a 31-year-old woman from the Kharkiv region (northeast) told the NGO that a Russian soldier repeatedly raped her at the school where she was sheltering with her family, and also beat her and cut her face and neck with a knife.

“All the time he pointed his gun at my temple or in my face. Twice he shot at the roof and said it was to give me more motivation,” said the woman, identified as “Olga” who was in the school shelter with her five-year-old daughter.

The woman later walked with her family from Malaya Rohan to Chernigov, where she received medical assistance and contacted the authorities to report the facts.

HRW added that it has received other allegations of sexual violence from Russian soldiers in the Chernigov region and in Mariupol (south), but has not been able to verify them independently.

“Cases of rape, murder and other violent acts against the population guarded by Russian forces should be investigated as war crimes,” said HRW's director for Europe, Hugh Williamson.

“Russia has a legal obligation to impartially investigate the alleged war crimes of its soldiers,” he added.

Following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the northern suburbs of Kiev, Ukrainian media have reported the discovery of dozens of dead bodies tied up, abandoned in the streets, in what appear to have been summary executions.

The mayor of Bucha, Anatoli Fedoruk, said yesterday that local authorities collected 280 bodies from the streets and buried them in a mass grave.

(With information from EFE)

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