A group of experts testified on Capitol Hill alleging the Russian military has committed war crimes during the first three weeks of the invasion of Ukraine.
Christo Grozev, an investigator with Bellingcat, a global investigatory platform, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that his group had documented “more than 350 incidents that have caused harm to civilians,” more than 10%, 35-40 in total, of which “appear to be egregious cases of violations of the laws of warfare.”
US HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF ACTIVITIES AT UKRAINIAN BIOLABS ONCE SEIZED BY RUSSIA: OFFICIALS
He outlined the five “most egregious cases of civilian harm,” and the list includes the missile strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, an airstrike on Chernihiv on March 3 that killed roughly 50 people, the strike on the Kyiv TV tower that also hit a nearby Holocaust museum, an airstrike in Kharkiv that hit a residential block, and the “widespread use of cluster munitions.”
Grozev also alleged that they had seen photos of civilians killed “with clearly visible signs of torture and mutilation.”
Bonnie Docherty, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, also testified in front of the committee, saying the military’s supposed choice of weapon, cluster munitions, has “devastating effects on civilians in Ukraine.”
Neither the U.S. nor Russia is a part of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the international treaty that bans these weapons, though a Pentagon official told reporters, “Under the law of war applicable to the United States, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and other law of war treaties that the United States has accepted, cluster munitions and thermobaric munitions are not banned as such. The law of war prohibits using any weapon, including cluster munitions and thermobaric munitions, to target civilians.”
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights reported on Tuesday that there have been 726 civilians killed, while another 1,174 have been wounded. Roughly 50 children were among those who have been killed. The U.N. International Organization for Migration said the number of refugees eclipsed that 3 million mark on Tuesday.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Docherty added, “Russia’s cluster munition attacks have been unlawful because they involve inherently indiscriminate weapons that cannot distinguish between combatants and civilians. Individuals responsible for ordering or carrying out cluster munition attacks against civilians or civilian objects with criminal intent, that is either intentionally or recklessly, would be committing war crimes.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said last week that there “absolutely” should be an investigation into possible war crimes in the days after the maternity hospital bombing.
