Is Russia committing war crimes?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How Ukrainians are documenting the destruction of their country. And, why the international community may struggle to hold Russian officials accountable for alleged war crimes.
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As Russia continues its artillery assault of major population centers in Ukraine, Western officials have begun accusing Russian military officials of committing war crimes.
“We've seen these really gruesome images of civilian casualties, of the shelling and the complete destruction of Ukrainian cities,” says foreign affairs reporter Claire Parker. “And mounting evidence of the use of weapons that have triggered serious alarm among international observers and raised allegations that Russia could be committing war crimes.”
On today’s Post Reports, Sudursan Raghavan reports from the rubble of a village near Kyiv, where a team was collecting evidence of possible war crimes.
Then, Parker walks us through the accusations against the Russian military and why it may be difficult for the International Criminal Court to hold anyone accountable.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In a small village six miles south of Kiev, a Ukrainian military chaplain is praying |
| 0:14.8 | amid rubble and debris over what used to be a family's home. |
| 0:30.4 | Just a day earlier, a suspected Russian air strike demolished the house in neighboring |
| 0:35.0 | homes. |
| 0:36.2 | The attack killed six people, including a disabled 12-year-old girl, her mother, and her grandmother. |
| 0:44.6 | They were all in a car that was just returning back to the house when the air strike happened. |
| 0:52.2 | That's reporter Sudarsan Ragaven. |
| 0:54.6 | He was in the village that day as people assessed the damage, and one of them was the little |
| 0:59.1 | girl's father, Ihor Mazayev. |
| 1:02.5 | And he and other family members were looking through the rubble. |
| 1:11.0 | They were searching for deeds to an apartment. |
| 1:17.8 | They were also looking for passports, as well as bird certificates. |
| 1:22.6 | They were even looking for a bag of cash they told me. |
| 1:27.6 | Sudarsan says there was also a film crew there that day. |
| 1:31.3 | They were sent by the military to collect evidence. |
| 1:35.3 | They were there in part to comfort the family, but also to document what had happened to |
| 1:42.9 | one day provide as evidence against Russia for potential war crimes at the international |
| 1:48.1 | court at the Hague. |
| 1:50.7 | This has become a new front in Ukraine's war. |
| 1:53.3 | I'm almost every day now as the civilian casualties are mounting. |
| 1:58.1 | The government here has been declaring these attacks war crimes. |
| 2:05.6 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
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