|
'Kill everyone': Russian violence in Ukraine was strategic
[AP] ZDVYZHIVKA, Ukraine Even by the standards of the important military officers who came and went in this tiny village, the man walking behind the Kamaz truck stood out.Soldiers providing security peered from behind fences, their guns bristling in every direction. Two Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters circled overhead, providing additional cover for Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko as he escorted an aid convoy in March from the schoolhouse on Tsentralna street that Russian officers commandeered as a headquarters. Fifteen minutes away, in the village of Ozera, the lives of three men were about to take a dramatic turn for the worse. While Chaiko was directing Russia’s attack on Kyiv from Zdvyzhivka, the men were brought to the village by Russian troops, who interrogated and tortured them and then shot them in the garden of a large house about a kilometer (less than a mile) from where the general now stood. The deaths of these men were part of a pattern of violence that left hundreds of civilians beaten, tortured and executed in territory under Chaiko’s command. This wasn’t the work of rogue soldiers, an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series "Frontline" shows. It was strategic and organized brutality, perpetrated in areas that were under tight Russian control where military officers — including Chaiko himself — were present. War crimes prosecutors in Ukraine are trying to gather evidence against Chaiko, who earned a global reputation for brutality as leader of Russia’s forces in Syria. And international human rights lawyers said evidence gathered by AP and "Frontline" was enough to merit an investigation of Chaiko at the International Criminal Court. This story is part of an AP/FRONTLINE investigation that includes the War Crimes Watch Ukraine interactive experience and the documentary "Putin’s Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes," on PBS. Caution - Graphic images at link below: Photojournalist describes what Russia left behind in Bucha: 'It's apocalyptic' Posted by: Besoeker 2022-10-27 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=647888 |