UN Report: Russia killed an average of six civilians a day in Ukraine in the last six months
Russia killed an average of six civilians a day in Ukraine in the last six months, according to a report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, presented on Wednesday in Kiev. The report documents a toll of 10,000 civilians killed since the start of the Russian offensive on a large scale in Ukraine in February 2022, according to EFE, cited by Agerpres.
"More than 20 months after the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian civilians continue to pay a terrible price, with nearly 10,000 dead and tens of thousands wounded," the report states. "In the last six months, the war has claimed an average of six civilian victims a day," the document underlines.
The report documents "constant rocket attacks on residential areas and critical infrastructure" and Russian bombings of the grain industry and agricultural infrastructure that "continue to sow fear and destruction" throughout Ukraine.
Among the effects of the war on the population, the UN investigation highlights the economic consequences of the Russian invasion for millions of people.
The systematic and documented violation of human rights includes widespread torture with beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, sexual violence, and other forms of abuse of prisoners of war and Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces in occupied territories.
The document also points to the blackmail of Ukrainian citizens in occupied areas to accept Russian citizenship, without which they are often denied access to basic services.
Ukrainian men in these areas also face the threat of being sent to the front to fight on the side of Russia against the armed forces of their country.
Another abuse denounced in the report concerns the forced transfer of Ukrainian children and minors, who in many cases were in the care of the Ukrainian state and who suffer from mental and intellectual disabilities, from one occupied area to another or to the territory of the Russian Federation.
As for the Ukrainian side, the report expresses concern about the nearly 8,000 criminal prosecutions against alleged collaborators by July of this year. According to the data cited, Ukrainian justice has been convicted in "almost all" cases that have been tried.
The accused are often people who collaborated with the Russian authorities stationed in the territories occupied by Russia and later liberated by Ukraine, who agreed to work with the occupiers in various positions of responsibility. Many of these people have told UN investigators that they did so under duress.
In addition, the report criticises the "severity" with which non-violent crimes, such as justifying the Russian invasion on social media, are prosecuted and sometimes convicted, and calls for more clarity in the law to avoid arbitrary decisions in this regard. Ukrainian media have previously reported cases of retired women sentenced to long prison terms for liking such Russian content on the Odnoklassniki social network, which were interpreted as "glorifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine," as reported on September 29 by the Ukrainian service of the BBC.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
