RUSSIAN WAR CRIMES AGAINST UKRAINE
IRINA MIROCHNIK

Summary update as of July 25, 2022
The use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians is a crime against humanity and a violation of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.
By killing civilians, the aggressor’s forces continue to commit crimes against humanity as defined by the Statute of the International Military Tribunal and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, cynically disregarding all the requirements of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. According to these norms, deliberate attacks on civilians who are not directly involved in hostilities are equated to war crimes.
The taking of civilian hostages is a direct violation of Articles 3 and 34 of the Geneva Convention with regard to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
As of July 25, 2022, since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 358 children have died and more than 686 children have been injured. Due to the active hostilities in affected regions, there is no possibility to inspect the areas of shelling and destruction. The actual data on dead and injured children in these regions are currently being established.

The Ministry of Social Policy informs: since the beginning of the war, as a result of hostilities, 229 cases of injury and/or death of workers have been recorded at Ukrainian enterprises, most of them in groups.
Because of Russia’s armed aggression, 481 workers were injured (+43 over the last week), 143 of them died while performing their work duties.
Donetsk and Luhansk Regions
At night, the Russians dropped an air bomb on Bakhmut – no one was injured, but
at least 5 houses were damaged. In the morning, the enemy shelled the city – it is known about 1 wounded person. This was reported by the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
In Soledar, as a result of night and morning shelling, at least 1 person was killed, three houses were damaged, two garages burned down, and the electricity supply was cut off. In addition, as a result of shelling, a residential building in Kramatorsk and private houses in the villages of Kodema and Dachi were damaged.
In Mariupol, temporarily occupied by Russian troops, the invaders damaged and destroyed the homes of more than 156,000 citizens. This was reported by the Mariupol City Council.
In particular, more than 60% of multi-story buildings in Mariupol were damaged by more than 40% or completely destroyed.
In the Luhansk region, as a result of the actions of the Russian troops, fires destroyed 26,043 hectares of forest, which caused environmental damage in the amount of about 98.7 billion hryvnias. People’s deputy of Ukraine Olena Kryvoruchkina, the main coordinator of the Operational Headquarters for recording, organizing information and forming a single register of damage caused to the environment as a result of the invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, told about this. Calculations were made on the basis of data obtained using the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), Open Foris and NASA FIRMS. Kryvoruchkina noted that the amount of damages will continue to grow.

Kharkiv and Region
As a result of the night shelling of the Chuhuiv community of the Kharkiv region, a school was destroyed, which was planned to be used as a heating point, and heat network of one of the micro-districts, the head of the regional military administration Oleh Synegubov said.
According to him, the shelling was conducted from the S-300 SAM. Shells hit the cultural center, destroying it completely, the school and the former officers’ house. As previously reported, seven people were in the cultural center at the time of the shooting. Three of them did not require hospitalization after being freed from the rubble, one woman was hospitalized.
According to available information, people who used the basement as a shelter may still be under the rubble of the cultural center.
A 39-year-old tractor driver was killed in the village of Kulynychi, Kharkiv district, due to driving over an explosive device.
Oleh Synegubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, announced this in his morning briefing.
According to his information, residential sectors were shelled several times during the day in the village of Korobochkyne and the village of Pechenihy. Outside the populated areas, a fire broke out in a wheat field with an area of 1 hectare.

Mykolaiv and Region
At night, the Russian occupiers shelled Mykolaiv and a village in the Mykolaiv region, as a result of which a 7-year-old child was injured.
This was announced by the head of the Mykolaiv regional military administration Vitaliy Kim.
As a result of shelling, objects of critical infrastructure, electricity and gas supply were damaged. Residential buildings and vehicles were partially de- stroyed and damaged. There was also a fire in a two-story residential building.
During the day, 44 civilian objects were damaged in Mykolaiv region.

In total, as of July 25, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, 7,910 civilian objects were partially or completely damaged in Mykolaiv region. This was reported by the press service of the Mykolaiv regional military administration.
Of them:
– housing stock objects – 5109,
– medical institutions – 53,
– educational institutions – 296,
– cultural institutions – 124,
– objects of industrial enterprises – 97,
– life support facilities: gas – 717, electricity – 511, water – 27,
heat supply – 90,
– other non-military objects – 886.
Dnipro and Region
The Prosecutor’s Office of the Dnipro region reports:
On July 25, 2022, the Russian military, disregarding the norms of international humanitarian law, fired with MLRSs at populated areas of the Nikopol district. A 10-year-old girl was injured as a result of enemy shelling. 16 residential buildings and farm buildings were damaged.
The occupiers also launched rocket attacks on the Dnipro district, damaging the infrastructure of an agricultural enterprise.

Zaporizhzhia and Region
According to the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, almost 17,700 consumers in 73 settlements of the region remain without electricity, and 226,600 subscribers in 268 settlements of the region are without gas. Huliaipole and nearby villages of Polohy district, Stepnohirsk township and nearby villages of Vasylivka district, as well as part of Polohy, remain without water.
In the city of Huliaipole on July 23, 2 hectares of wheat caught fire due to enemy shelling. Rescuers found 9 fragments of cluster munitions in one day. This was reported by the State Emergency Service in the Zaporizhzhia region.
At the Russian checkpoint in Vasylivka, 1,200 cars and more than 5,000 people are waiting to leave for Zaporizhzhia. Five people have already died in the queue. Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov said this.
According to him, the Russians allow from 20 to 150 cars a day. This is about 500 people, but the demand for departure is much higher, and the queue is growing every day.
Fedorov noted that at the end of last week, the authorities of Melitopol, together with the Government, appealed to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation with a request to provide a corridor for the departure of Ukrainians from the city. The Russians rejected this request: they said that there were no people willing to leave Melitopol.
According to the mayor, the Russians are accumulating a queue in this way in order to use civilians as human shields.
Today, July 25, on the road between Melitopol and Berdiansk of the Zaporizhzhia region, a Russian military KAMAZ truck ran over a car – two adults and a child died on the spot. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported this.
27-07-2022
[ Writer Irina Mirochnik is the President at IMMER Group & Doctor of Philosophy in Law(PhD)]
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