A continuous string of war crimes and human rights abuses --- in Crimea as well. Russian authorities finally admit detention of Crimean human rights activist after holding her for 12 days https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/europe/crimea-russia-detained-activist-danylovich-intl-cmd/index.html For 12 long, terrifying days, Iryna Danylovich's family and friends had no idea where she was. The Crimean human rights activist and nurse disappeared on her way home from work in the Russian-annexed peninsula almost two weeks ago. On Wednesday, her loved ones finally received confirmation she had been detained by Russian authorities, who have until now refused to say whether, where or by whom she was being held. Danylovich's lawyer Aider Azamatov has spent the past 12 days searching for her in detention centers across the peninsula. He told CNN that like her friends and family, he was repeatedly turned away and told by the authorities they had no information about Danylovich. That all changed on Wednesday afternoon. "We went to the detention center in Simferopol again and I was finally told that Iryna is there. They didn't let us speak or see each other," he said. Azamatov told CNN he was given documents that show Danylovich has been charged with Illegal handling of explosives or explosive devices -- a charge she denies. Danylovich's father Bronislav told the news site Krym.Realii, a Radio Liberty affiliate, that his daughter went missing on the morning of April 29, after finishing her shift at a medical facility in Koktebel, southeastern Crimea. At around the same time, Azamatov said, balaclava-clad officials from the Russian special police unit came to the house Danylovich shares with her parents in the village of Vladislavovka, near Feodosiya. Vladislavovka is about 34 kilometers (21 miles) from Koktebel. He told CNN that the officials who searched the family's house told her father she had been sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest for "the transfer of unclassified information to a foreign state." However, they refused to hand over any documents. Crimean authorities were not immediately available to comment on Wednesday afternoon. When CNN inquired about Danylovich on Tuesday, Crimean authorities refused to comment. The officer on duty at the prosecutor's office for Russian-occupied Crimea referred CNN to authorities in Danylovich's hometown. When CNN reached the police station in Feodosiya on Tuesday, the person who answered the call said they knew nothing about the case and hung up. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russian-occupied Crimea did not respond to a written request for comment. A phone number listed on its website is not reachable. Iryna Danylovich has been missing since April 29. Through her work as a citizen journalist, Danylovich has exposed problems in Crimea's health care system, including in its response to the coronavirus pandemic. She has written for a number of Ukrainian media outlets and has published her findings on Facebook. Human rights organization Crimea SOS said Wednesday that Danylovich faces up to eight years in prison. "Human rights activists are now investigating whether there was falsification of evidence. It is known that Iryna does not admit her guilt and has refused to testify," the group said in a statement. It added that the case had "all the elements of an enforced disappearance." The term enforced disappearance describes disappearances either perpetrated by state actors or by others acting on behalf of, or with the support of, state authorities, followed by a refusal to disclose the person's fate and whereabouts. Because the authorities refuse to acknowledge detention, the victim doesn't have any legal protection and perpetrators are rarely prosecuted, according to the UN. The UN says the practice is often used as a strategy to spread terror within society. Danylovich's case is the latest in a string of disappearances of activists, journalists and ordinary citizens reported over the last decade in Crimea. According to a report published in March 2021, the UN Human Rights Office documented at least 43 cases of enforced disappearances in Crimea between 2014 and 2018. The UN said they were mostly abductions and kidnappings and that some of the victims -- 39 men and four women -- had been subjected to ill treatment and torture. Eleven of the men remained missing, and one man remained in detention at the time of the report. The UN said they had not been able to document any prosecutions in relation to any of the cases.
First war crimes trial starting now, 11,000 more to go. First Russian soldier to go on trial in Ukraine for war crimes As Nato expansion ratchets up the pressure on Vladimir Putin, Vadim Shysimarin, 21, is charged with murdering a 62-year-old civilian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...dier-to-go-on-trial-in-ukraine-for-war-crimes A court in Kyiv will hear the first war crime trial since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, while the Kremlin bristled at Finland seeking to join Nato and Sweden moving to follow suit. In a watershed moment, a Russian soldier will be accused of murdering a 62-year-old civilian when he appears in the dock on Friday, with the case coming as the number of crimes registered by Ukraine’s general prosecutor surpassed 11,000 and Unicef reported that at least 100 children had been killed in the war in April alone. The defendant who will appear at Kyiv’s district court is Vadim Shysimarin, a 21-year-old commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division, who is currently in Ukrainian custody. It is alleged Shysimarin, a sergeant, had been fighting in the Sumy region in north-east Ukraine when he killed a civilian on 28 February in the village of Chupakhivka. He is accused of shooting at a civilian car after his convoy of military vehicles had come under attack from Ukrainian forces. He then drove the car away with four other soldiers as he sought to flee Ukrainian fighters. Shysimarin shot dead the unarmed man, who was on a bicycle and talking on his phone, after being ordered “to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders”, according to prosecutors. The crime is said to have happened “dozens of metres” from the victim’s house and was committed using an AK-74 rifle. The case was this week filed at a criminal court. “He is here [in Ukraine], we have him,” said Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, from her heavily fortified headquarters in Kyiv on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said: “Prosecutors and investigators of the SBU [Ukrainian secret services] have collected enough evidence of his involvement in violation of the laws and customs of war combined with premeditated murder. For these actions, he faces 10 to 15 years in prison or life in prison.” Two other cases are likely to be heard in court within days including an in absentia trial of Mikhail Romanov, a Russian soldier accused of rape and murder. He is accused of breaking into a house in March in a village in the Brovarsky region near Kyiv, murdering a man and then repeatedly raping his wife while “threatening her and her underage child with violence and weapons”. The trial is another propaganda triumph for Kyiv and another diplomatic move increasing pressure on Vladimir Putin with Finland’s plan to apply for Nato membership, and the expectation tha tSweden will follow. Moscow called Finland’s announcement hostile and threatened retaliation, including unspecified “military-technical” measures. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the Finns would be “warmly welcomed” and promised a “smooth and swift” accession process. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said: “We would support a Nato application by Finland and-or Sweden should they apply.” Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss has urged a meeting of G7 foreign ministers to equip Ukraine to Nato standards and maintain sanctions against Russia until it has fully withdrawn. The BBC reported that Truss told the meeting in Germany: “[Vladimir] Putin is humiliating himself on the world stage. We must ensure he faces a defeat in Ukraine that denies him any benefit and ultimately constrains further aggression. “The best long-term security for Ukraine will come from it being able to defend itself. That means providing Ukraine with a clear pathway to Nato-standard equipment.” Elsewhere, Ukraine has claimed that it has damaged a Russian navy logistics ship near Snake Island in the Black Sea, as the Kremlin bristled at Finland seeking to join Nato and Sweden moving to follow suit. “Thanks to the actions of our naval seamen, the support vessel Vsevolod Bobrov caught fire – it is one of the newest in the Russian fleet,” said Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration. Satellite imagery provided by Maxar, a private US-based company, showed the aftermath of what it said were probable missile attacks on a Russian Serna-class landing craft near the island, close to Ukraine’s sea border with Romania. Maxar images also showed recent damage to buildings on the island. Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Renewed fighting around Snake Island in recent days may become a battle for control of the western Black Sea coast, according to some defence officials, as Russian forces struggle to make headway in Ukraine’s north and east. Ukrainian forces are reported to have driven Russian troops out of the region around the second-largest city, Kharkiv. The Reuters news agency said its journalists had confirmed Ukraine was in control of territory stretching to the banks of the Siverskiy Donets river, around 40km (25 miles) east of Kharkiv. Regional authorities reported ongoing missile strikes around Poltava and shelling at Dergach, near Kharkiv, that killed two people. Russia’s army said it struck Donetsk and Kharkiv on Thursday, killing more than 170 people and destroying Ukrainian drones and rockets. Fighting has continued in Ukraine’s south and east. Ukraine’s presidency said shelling continued throughout Lugansk – part of the Donbas region where Ukrainian forces are fighting Russian armour and Kremlin-backed separatists. Zelensky said in his Thursday address to the nation that Russian forces had destroyed 570 health care facilities in the country, including 101 hospitals. “What for? It’s nonsense. It’s barbarity.” In the north-eastern region of Chernihiv, three people were killed and 12 others wounded on Thursday in a strike on a school in Novgorod-Siversky, the emergency services said. Iryna Vereshchuk, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, said “difficult talks” were under way over the evacuation of 38 seriously wounded troops from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. “We have started a new round of negotiations around a road map for an [evacuation] operation. And we will start with those who are badly wounded,” she told 1+1 television. Disputes have intensified over Russian supplies of energy to Europe – still Moscow’s biggest source of funds and Europe’s biggest source of heat and power. Moscow said it would halt gas flows to Germany through the main pipeline over Poland, while Kyiv said it would not reopen a pipeline route it shut this week unless it regains control of areas from pro-Russian fighters. Prices for gas in Europe surged.
First guilty plea... only 11,000 more to go. Russian soldier pleads guilty in first war crimes trial of Ukraine conflict https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61496428 A 21-year-old Russian soldier has pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian, in the first war crimes trial in Ukraine since the war started. Vadim Shishimarin admitted shooting a 62-year-old man a few days after the invasion began. He faces life in jail. The prisoner was brought into the tiny Kyiv courtroom in handcuffs, flanked by heavily armed guards. He looked nervous, and kept his head bowed. Just a couple of metres from him, the widow of the man killed was sitting. She wiped tears from her eyes as the soldier entered court, then sat with hands clasped as the prosecutor set out his case, describing the moment Kateryna's husband was shot in the head. "Do you accept your guilt?" the judge asked. "Yes," Shishimarin replied. "Totally?" "Yes," he replied quietly from behind the glass of his grey metal-and-glass cage. Prosecutors say Shishimarin was commanding a unit in a tank division when his convoy came under attack. He and four other soldiers stole a car, and as they travelled near Chupakhivka, they encountered the 62-year-old on a bicycle, they said. According to prosecutors, Shishimarin was ordered to kill the civilian and used a Kalashnikov assault rifle to do so. The Kremlin said earlier it was not informed about the case. Shishimarin's trial was adjourned shortly after the civilian's widow heard for the first time the Russian soldier admit to the murder. This high profile hearing will restart on Thursday in a larger courtroom. "By this first trial, we are sending a clear signal that every perpetrator, every person who ordered or assisted in the commission of crimes in Ukraine shall not avoid responsibility," Ukraine's chief prosecutor Iryna Venediktova tweeted. Prosecutors say more trials of this nature are to come, although Moscow has denied its troops have targeted civilians. The International Criminal Court has been investigating whether there is evidence war crimes are taking place and is sending a team of 42 investigators, forensics experts and support staff to the country. Ukraine has also set up a team to preserve evidence to enable future prosecutions.
Videos show Russian soldiers leading a group of Ukrainian captives at gunpoint moments before they were executed in Bucha, report says https://www.businessinsider.com/vid...-ukrainians-before-execution-bucha-nyt-2022-5
Venue usually used by Russia to promote itself in Davos has been rebranded as the Russian War Crimes House https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-22-22/ The venue typically used by Russia to promote itself at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos has been rebranded as the Russian War Crimes House. Russia House was used to host events at WEF by Russians for many years. A Ukrainian businessman, working with WEF, has turned the venue into an exhibition depicting the devastation and destruction of the war in Ukraine. Organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre, an international centre for contemporary art based in Kyiv, “the exhibition aims to inform about the main facts, share faces, names and dates and provide at least some of the victims a platform from which to tell their real story,” the foundation said in a press release. Björn Geldhof, the exhibition's curator, told CNN that the process of collecting and verifying the images took about one-and-a-half weeks, collecting more than 4,600 images showing “overwhelming amount of evidence of war crimes.” “An exhibition as this, is one of the steps to raise awareness for the absolute necessity of bringing war criminals to justice and this is not exclusively the task of Ukraine, this is a common task, this is a task for all countries in the world to say this cannot be,” Geldhof told CNN. He added that this project is “about people” who have been attacked and killed. “And we need to honor them, we need to give them a voice and we need to give them a face,” he said. Russian politicians and businessmen were not invited to this year’s World Economic Forum after Russia invaded Ukraine. “As Russia is not here, we had the opportunity to speak about Russia but about a different reality of Russia, about the war crimes that Russia is committing in Ukraine,” Geldhof said adding that “it is incredibly important to show what Russia is really doing in Ukraine which is proactively and consciously targeting civilians, killing, raping civilians in a way to try to exterminate Ukraine as a nation.” The initiative was supported by the City Council and the World Economic Forum.
One conviction with a life sentence.... another 48 war crime trials queued up. Another 11,000 to go after this. Russia-Ukraine war: 48 more Russian soldiers to face war crimes trial with 13,000 alleged offenses to be investigated https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/worl...ry-day-in-east-zelenskiy-says-live/ar-AAXBxGF
The war crimes and genocide by Putin's aggressors continues... ‘Serious and imminent' risk of genocide in Ukraine – report There is enough evidence to conclude that Russia is inciting genocide in Ukraine and committing atrocities intended to destroy the Ukrainian people, according to the first independent report into allegations of genocide committed by Russian troops in Ukraine. https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...082b0174c56cfb#block-6290bf778f082b0174c56cfb More than 30 leading legal scholars and genocide experts have signed the report accusing the Russian state of violating several articles of the United Nations Genocide Convention, CNN reports. The report warns there is a serious and imminent risk of genocide in Ukraine, accompanied by a long list of evidence including examples of mass killings of civilians, forced deportations and dehumanising anti-Ukrainian rhetoric used by top Russian officials. It directly accuses Russian top officials of orchestrating incitement to genocide and laying the groundwork for future genocide by repeatedly denying the existence of a Ukrainian identity. As examples, the report points to the dehumanising language used by Russian officials to describe Ukrainians, including words such as “bestial”, “subordinate” and “filth”, or Vladimir Putin’s statements that he believes Ukraine has no right to exist as an independent state. Azeem Ibrahim, a director at the US-based thinktank New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, which put together the report, said: "What we have seen so far is that this war is genocidal in its nature, in terms of the language being used and the manner in which it is being executed. That’s very, very clear." The experts also accused Russian forces of carrying out a “pattern of consistent and pervasive atrocities against Ukrainian civilians collectively” in the course of the invasion. It said that well-documented massacres and summary executions in Bucha, Staryi Bykiv, and in Sumy and Chernihiv regions, Russia’s deliberate attacks on shelters, evacuation routes and healthcare facilities, as well the indiscriminate targeting and bombardment of residential areas, rapes, sieges, grain thefts and forced deportations to Russia all amount to “genocidal pattern of destruction”. The report calls on the international community to act, warning that there is “no time at all”. Ibrahim said: "Every country that is a signatory to the Genocide convention, and that’s 151 countries including the Russian Federation, every country has to do whatever it can to put a stop to this, otherwise they will also be in breach of the convention."