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Today marks a grim milestone. It’s been one thousand days since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Of course, Putin’s assault on Ukraine really started more than a decade ago, in 2014, as did his forces’ war crimes. Long before a thousand days ago, Human Rights Watch was documenting torture by the Kremlin’s proxy forces in the east, and persecution of people in occupied Crimea – right from the start, in fact.
Still, the escalation of Russian atrocities in Ukraine since February 2022 has been significant, as has the terror ordinary Ukrainians have been facing.
The Russian military has been bombing and shelling civilian centers and civilian infrastructure mercilessly. This was evident on day one of their “full-scale invasion,” when, among other horrors, a cluster munition struck just outside a hospital in Vuhledar.
Russia’s indiscriminate bombing has been well-documented in many cities since, including Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kramatorsk, Kremenchuk, Mariupol, Mykolaiv, and many, many others. Russian forces have also been repeatedly bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with little clear purpose other than to terrorize civilians – in violation of the laws of war.
In Irpin, they bombarded an intersection on a road civilians were using to flee the Russian army’s advance. In other places, Russian soldiers shot at those trying to escape, killing civilians. And for many more civilians, rather than let them flee to safety, the Russian military forcibly transferred them en masse to Russia and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine – also a war crime.
It was Russia’s mass abduction of children in Ukraine that led the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Putin and another Russian official.
In March 2022, Russian forces committed a string of atrocities during their occupation of Bucha, including summary executions, enforced disappearances, and torture. Such abuses are also well-documented in other areas that were under Russian occupation, such as in Izium, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia region, and elsewhere.
And there’s evidence of many other Russian war crimes during periods of occupation, like looting of civilians’ possessions and pillaging of artwork from museums, robbing Ukraine of its cultural heritage.
Russia’s assault on education in occupied parts of Ukraine has been particularly devastating. Russian occupation authorities in schools tell Ukrainians their country and language don’t exist. Teachers who disagree are faced with retaliation by the occupiers.
As my expert colleagues, Yulia Gorbunova and Kseniya Kvitka, : “Having laid waste to Ukrainian cities, they have rebuilt them in Russia’s image.”
It’s been encouraging to see many governments around the world come together over the past 1000 days to support efforts for international justice for atrocities in Ukraine. (If only they could do so for other places where horrors are also happening, like Gaza.)
What happens next in Ukraine has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks, but one thing remains certain regardless. The victims of Russian terror and atrocities in Ukraine deserve justice.
