Russia has committed war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where hundreds of civilians were killed or maimed in indiscriminate bombardments that targeted residential neighborhoods and many times used banned cluster bombs, Amnesty International said on June 13.
“The repeated use of widely banned cluster munitions is shocking, and a further indication of utter disregard for civilian lives," Amnesty said in a report titled Anyone Can Die At Any Time.
Amnesty said it had uncovered proof in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city with a population of 1.4 million people, that Russian forces repeatedly used 9N210 and 9N235 cluster bombs and scatterable land mines, all of which are banned under international agreements.
Cluster munitions release dozens of bomblets or grenades midair, scattering them indiscriminately over hundreds of square meters.
"The Russian forces responsible for these horrific attacks must be held accountable for their actions, and victims and their families must receive full reparations,” said Amnesty's Donatella Rovera.
"This is true both for the strikes carried out using cluster (munitions) as well as those conducted using other types of unguided rockets and unguided artillery shells," Rovera said.
The report says Russian forces bombarded civilian and residential areas of Kharkiv relentlessly for two months from the first day of Moscow's unprovoked invasion on February 24, causing "wholesale destruction."
"The continued use of such inaccurate explosive weapons in populated civilian areas, in the knowledge that they are repeatedly causing large numbers of civilian casualties, may even amount to directing attacks against the civilian population.
"People have been killed in their homes and in the streets, in playgrounds and in cemeteries, while queueing for humanitarian aid, or shopping for food and medicine," Rovera said.
"The Russian forces responsible for these horrific attacks must be held accountable."
The report quoted the Kharkiv region's military administration as saying that 606 civilians had been killed and 1,248 wounded since the conflict began. Most of the strikes investigated by Amnesty inflicted multiple casualties over widespread areas.
Although Russia is not a signatory of the Convention on Cluster Munitions or the Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines that ban the use of such weapons, "international humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks and the use of weapons that are indiscriminate by nature."
"Launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in death or injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects, constitutes war crimes," the report concluded.