(MENAFN- UkrinForm) The UN commission has confirmed that the Russian armed forces are responsible for the indiscriminate airstrikes on a drama theater and a maternity hospital in Mariupol, as well as a missile attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk. This is said in a report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.
“The circumstance of the attacks launched or likely launched by Russian armed forces that the Commission investigated has led it to determine that a majority of them were indiscriminate. These include widely reported instances such as the 16 March 2022 attack carried out during the siege of
Mariupol on the city's Drama Theatre that killed and injured a large number of people; the 8 April 2022 attack on the Kramatorsk train station, in which 59 people were killed and 92 were injured; and the 27 June 2022 attack on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, that killed 21 and injured dozens,” the document says.
The Commission said that“Russian armed forces failed to take feasible precautions to verify whether civilians were present”.
“Hundreds of civilians had gathered in the areas impacted by the attacks on the Kramatorsk train station and the Mariupol Drama Theatre. Similarly, there were hundreds of civilians in residential areas in Chernihiv city during attacks on 3 March 2022, which killed at least 20 people and injured many others,” the document says.
Despite the Kremlin cynical lies, the UN commissioners confirmed that Russia is responsible, along with the already mentioned attack on the drama theater, also for the attack on the maternity ward in Mariupol.
The Commission has in these situations concluded that Russian armed forces were responsible. In the remaining cases, the victims' bodies were found at or near locations that Russian armed forces used as bases.
“That the attacks impacted civilian buildings, such as functioning medical institutions, also manifests the failure to take precautions. This includes the attack on 9 March 2022 on the Mariupol Primary and Sanitation Aid Centre No. 3, often referred to as Maternity Ward No. 3, in which at least one pregnant woman and her unborn child were killed. Even if the Russian armed forces had military objectives in conducting the attacks, the special protected status of medical institutions should have led them to take extra care,” the document says.
Thus, the Commission has concluded that“Russian armed forces have committed, and in some cases are likely to have committed, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, which are violations of international humanitarian law”.
The Commission has also assessed whether the bombardment of Mariupol and the conduct of the siege in the city may constitute a crime against humanity. However, as the Commission has not had access to the Donetsk region, including Mariupol,“it does not have a sufficient basis to make such determination and recommends further investigations in this regard”.
As reported, the Mariupol Drama Theater, which was used as a bomb shelter, was bombarded by Russian aircraft on March 16, 2022, killing up to 600 people.
Prior to that, a maternity hospital, a hospital, a children's department and therapy in the center of Mariupol were destroyed in Russian airstrikes.
On April 8, 2022, Russian troops hit the railway station in Kramatorsk, where thousands of people were waiting for evacuation, with a Tochka-U missile.
In all cases, Russia denied responsibility, cynically claiming that the attacks were carried out by the Ukrainian army.