Russia committed human rights abuses and broke international humanitarian law during its invasion of Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe found. The report from the Vienna-based security body, released Wednesday, dives into attacks on civilian targets in the battered port city of Mariupol and follows President Biden’s declaration for the first time that Russia was carrying out a “genocide” in Ukraine.
“Taken as a whole, the report documents the catalogue of inhumanity perpetrated by Russia’s forces in Ukraine,” said Michael Carpenter, U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, in a speech. “This includes evidence of direct targeting of civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, executions, looting, and forced deportation of civilians to Russia.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Biden’s remarks the “true words of a true leader,” though top U.S. officials have resisted using the term, even amid evidence of brutal torture and killings and growing accusations that Russia has committed war crimes against Ukrainians. As French President Emmanuel Macron declined to call the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine “genocide,” saying that “an escalation of rhetoric” would not help stop the war, the heads of state of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — four of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters within NATO — traveled to Kyiv to meet Zelensky.
Satellite images captured in recent days by U.S. firm Maxar Technologies show Russian forces repositioning in Ukraine’s east, likely supplying more troops and military equipment in preparation for a fresh round of offensives in the region. A bird’s-eye view of several towns in Kharkiv and Luhansk, two provinces that sit near Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, revealed Russian convoys with more than 200 vehicles traveling along the highway. Meanwhile, the United States is readying a dramatic expansion of its weapons assistance to Ukraine, U.S. officials told The Washington Post.