A report compiled by three professors of international law for the Organization Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says it found “patterns of violent acts violating international human rights law (IHRL)” committed by Russian troops in Ukraine.
The report, published on April 13, said it furthermore found evidence that invading Russian forces also committed “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Not all violations of IHRL constitute war crimes.
The investigative mission said that 500,000 civilians had been forcibly deported from Ukraine to Russia.
In the besieged port city of Mariupol, the report said that Russia had carried out the March 9 attack on a maternity hospital, a charge that Moscow has denied. Another Russian attack on the Mariupol Drama Theater on March 16, where civilians were taking refuge, was a war crime, the report stated.
The mission to investigate the war crimes was established by 45 of the OSCE’s 57 member states. Russia opposed it.
The three professors in charge of the mission are from Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
Russia’s mission to the OSCE said on social media the report “is based solely on unfounded propaganda theses.”
