The Serendipity of Kiev During the First Day of the Invasion: Two Ukrainians Are Raped by a Russian Soldier

MOSCOW — For months, Russia’s state media has insisted that the country was hitting only military targets in Ukraine, leaving out the suffering that the invasion has brought to millions of civilians.

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed plumes of smoke and carnage in central Kyiv, along with empty store shelves and a long-range forecast promising months of freezing temperatures there.

The shift was a sign that President Putin believed it was necessary for a brutal show of force, just as much for his own people as they were for the West.

They look for those who are left behind after the homes have been damaged. The two men form a specialist unit that’s traveled from the capital, Kyiv.

Russian troops had occupied this part of the country until early October. Burnt-out cars litter the fields. The letter ‘Z’ – a symbol used by Russian forces – marks the walls.

The United Nations said it had investigated cases of sexual and gender-based violence against people who ranged between 4 and 81 years old. As of September, 43 criminal proceedings had been initiated, according to the UN.

There are six sexual assault allegations that have been documented in two weeks by the team from Kyiv. They say the real number is much higher.

She says they walked around those rooms. The man who raped me came in here. He came in, walked a little bit around the room and here in this place, he started groping me.”

She claims he pinned her against the wardrobe and tore at her clothes. She says she was crying and begging him to stop. I only thought about staying alive.

She remembers he warned her not to tell anyone. “I didn’t tell my husband right away,” she says, in tears. “But I told my cousin, and my husband overheard. He said, that he should have told him the truth, but did not.

She was widowed more than 30 years ago – she says her husband died in a motorcycle accident – and her son joined the military soon after Russia’s invasion on February 24. She says that she left about three months after Russian troops occupied her village.

The horrors of occupation: how Kherson and Russia dealt with a wounded soldier on a village bordered by Russian troops and forced to flee

His commander found the leader of the unit. He told me that he had punished him but that the hardest punishment was yet to come. Like shooting. I was asked, “Do you mind this?”. I said, “I wish all of them would be shot.”

Although the prosecutor, Kleshchenko, and police officer Oleksandr Svidro are looking specifically for evidence of sexual crimes, everywhere they go they are confronted with the horrors of occupation.

The village was behind Russian lines, but never directly occupied. Those gathered round shout that they’ve been abandoned for months, with no help from either Russia or Ukraine.

A man in the crowd told investigators he was held by Russian soldiers and then EXECUTED. tales of torture like this are common here, but they aren’t the subject of their work today.

Everyone we have spoken to is aware that there are tougher days to come: that the Russians across the river could shell them here. It is also unclear whether all Russian troops have left Kherson and the wider region. There is still uncertainty behind this euphoria.

The first weeks of the autumn saw Ukrainian forces regain hundreds of square miles of territory they had been stripped of by Russia.

When Russian troops invade Ukraine, they aren’t going to stop. Investigating a case of alleged sexual crime in Tverdomedove

A short drive down roads pockmarked by shelling, in Tverdomedove, a mother and daughter tell Kleshchenko that they have not heard of any sexual crimes in their one-road hamlet.

Months later, after the Ukrainian military liberated her village in a lightning counteroffensive, she returned. Shelling had reduced her roof to its rafters.

She says she doesn’t know where to put it to stop the ceiling from falling on her. I wouldn’t suffer if it fell and killed me. But I want to see my son again.”

Of course, many of these allegations will be impossible to prove; many do not even have a suspect. The team files their reports, and investigators are still trying to file charges in the future.

For much of the journey through smaller towns and settlements, our team of CNN journalists was forced to drive through diversions and fields: bridges over canals were blown up, and roads were full of craters and littered with anti-tank mines.

Trenches and checkpoints were empty, quickly abandoned by Russians who on Friday announced they had withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro River in the strategic southern region of Kherson, leaving the regional capital of the same name and surrounding areas to the Ukrainians.

The evidence shows that the Kremlin wants to deny and suppress the history and culture of Ukraine. “The devastating impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations. The United States will continue to pursue accountability for Russia’s atrocious abuses for as long as it takes.

CNN Observation of the Crimes against Ukraine in the Era of the Second World War and the Challenge of the War in Kyiv

The city’s residents do not have access to water, the internet or power. The mood was great as CNN entered the city center.

The military presence is still limited, but huge cheers erupt from crowds on the street every time a truck full of soldiers drives past, with Ukrainian soldiers being offered soup, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses by elated passersby.

As CNN crew stopped to regroup, we observed an old man and woman hugging a soldier with their hands on his shoulder and giving him a big hug.

A teenager today told CNN that he was beaten up by Russian soldiers, who thought he was a spy, after being taken under their wing during Russian occupation. Residents told us they are emotionally exhausted, and overwhelmed by what this new-found freedom means.

Everyone wants you to understand what they have been through, how happy they are, and how thankful they are for the countries that have helped them.

Kyiv and its Western allies are “set for a long confrontation with Russia” following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s momentous visit to Washington, Moscow said as the war in Ukraine approaches 10 months.

After US President Joe Biden promised more military assistance toUkraine during Zelensky’s summit in the White House Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called the “monstrous crimes” of the “regime in Kyiv”.

Maria Zakharova said that the Western countries will achieve nothing with the military help they give to the Ukrainian government.

The tasks set within the framework of the special military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on the ground and actual realities, said Zakharova.

Zelensky gave a historic speech from the US Capitol thanking American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began and asking for more.

The Kremlin condemned the transaction and said the US supplying the Ukrainian people with Patriot missile systems will prolong their suffering.

The US and other countries are increasing the range and technical level of the weapons they supply to the Ukrainians, according to the Kremlin. This does not contribute to a quick settlement of the situation.

Peskov said there were no real calls for peace. But during his address to the US Congress on Wednesday, Zelensky did stress that “we need peace,” reiterating the 10-point plan devised by Ukraine.

Peskov told journalists, however, that Wednesday’s meeting showed the US is waging a proxy war of “indirect fighting” against Russia down “to the last Ukrainian.”

Raymond’s team of researchers is tackling one of the most explosive issues of the war. Ukrainian officials say Russia has evacuated thousands of Ukrainian children without parental consent.

Nathaniel Raymond is the executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. “It is a massive logistical undertaking that does not happen by accident.”

“The Russian government needs to legitimize its activities, that make all of this seem normal,” she says, “because you simply can’t move these many children through these many places without their movements being noticed.”

There are different types of summer camp programs where the kids are slated to return home and never did, but in other cases they are re-education camps.

Investigating Missing Ukrainian Children’s Social Media During World War II: Yale Report on the 2022 Russian-Ukraine Children Deportation Possible War-crime Report

The Yale report is the most extensive look at the program so far, says Raymond. “It shows scale, it shows chain of command, it shows logistical complexity,” he adds.

The alarm grew louder in May 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a new decree that made it quick and easy to adopt Ukrainian children, which was next to impossible before the war. In addition, Russian officials announced it would extend government support to Russian families who adopt Ukrainian children; the biggest financial incentive is for adopting handicapped kids.

The Ukrainian government and U.N. senior human rights officials have consistently raised the alarm over these activities since the early days of the war.

The Yale researchers began investigating missing Ukrainian children when the first Russian social media posts appeared last year. A Yale researcher says the messaging started at the time of Putin’s adoption announcement. He asked not to be named to protect the security of his work from hackers.

“I believe the first places we saw this were on Telegram and then VK,” he says. Telegram is popular in Russia. The Russian version of Facebook is called VK.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/14/1156500561/russia-ukraine-children-deportation-possible-war-crime-report

Yale Lab: Collaborative Investigating War Crimes in the 21st Century. Evidence from On-the-Ground Witnesses

But now, open-source investigators have a trove of potential source material from on-the-ground witnesses who photograph war damage, map mass graves, record interviews with refugees — and post the results online. It’s easy to identify deliberately damaged hospitals, targeted grain silos or local children’s summer camps with high-resolution satellite images.

A group of 20 researchers comb social media posts, news reports and Russian messaging services for connections that may not be seen by the public.

“You can see people. You can see the things that are moving. You can see certain types of activity,” he said. He says that there’s a lot of material related to the patriotic education that they undergo while in camps. He says the lessons are meant to encourage loyalty to Russia and Moscow’s version of the war.

“This operation is centrally coordinated by Russia’s federal government and involved every level of government,” according to the report. Several dozen federal, regional and local figures were identified as being directly involved and politically justifying the program.

The Yale team are all young Internet sleuths who work to verify the data they dig up and document the steps needed to meet the exacting standards and protocols for trial.

Raymond describes the lab’s role as a “cop shop” – a “cyber cop shop,” that is mindful to detail a chain of custody for the evidence produced. To understand the Lab’s role, he points to the TV show Law and Order.

“We are the Jerry Orbach, beat cop side,” he says, “Our job is to collect the evidence, digital evidence, and then how that comports or does not with the law.”

“We are showing we can collect and make actionable evidence that was previously impossible.” In the past it was only available to governments, he says.

Raymond says that civil society using the same tools as governments will lead to the future of war crimes investigations at the Yale Lab.

The report was produced as a part of the work of the US State Department-backed Conflict Observatory by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. Last year the Observatory was set up to gather evidence of Russian war crimes.

It identified 43 facilities that are a part of the network, which “stretches from one end of Russia to the other,” including Russian-occupied Crimea, the “eastern Pacific Coast – closer to Alaska than it is to Moscow,” and Siberia, Raymond said.

The researchers have not seen any evidence that there are children being sent into conflict because of this apparent involvement in the training of children in the use of firearms and vehicles.

The number of children held for months at these camps has been unknown and it is unclear if they have been returned to their families. The two camps that were identified have children’s return date delayed by weeks. There are two other camps where the children’s returns have been indefinitely postponed.

“It’s also critically important to understand that these are children who – the lack of contact that they have, or the only intermittent contact that they may have with their parents, is causing very real and potential harm on a very daily basis,” said Caitlin Howarth, also of Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.

A report identified a number of federal, regional and local figures who are engaged in operating and justifying the program, but some of them are not on U.S. or international sanctions lists.

Raymond stated that this system was consistent with the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention in regards to the prohibition of transferring children from one group to another.

Ned Price said that the Moscow’s system of forced relocation, reeducation and adoption of Ukraine’s children was a key part of the Kremlin’s systematic efforts to deny and suppressUkraine’s history and its culture.

According to the media note, the US State Department believes that the illegal transfer and deportation of protected persons is a war crime.