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Distinctive marks from a cluster munition on the roof of a car next to a children’s playground in Kharkiv.
Russia has killed hundreds of civilians in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv using indiscriminate bombing and cluster munitions, weapons that are widely banned, new Amnesty International research has revealed.
Amnesty said it had found evidence that Russian forces repeatedly used cluster bombs 9N210/9N235, as well as “dispersible” munitions, rockets that eject smaller mines that explode later at timed intervals.
The BBC visited five locations in Kharkiv’s residential neighborhoods and found evidence of a distinctive shedding effect associated with cluster munitions. This medium showed images of the sites to three weapons expertswho said the hits were consistent with the controversial weapons.
“Those impacts are from cluster munitions, it is a classic signature“said Mark Hizney, senior researcher with the arms division of Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit organization. “And in one image you can see a remnant of a stabilizer fin from one of the submunitions,” he added.
The images delivered to the BBC by a resident in one of the locations they showed successive and grouped detonations, “a very strong indicator of submunitions from a cluster weapon,” said Hamish de Bretton Gordon, a former colonel in the British Army and a weapons expert at Cambridge University.
The landslide pattern created by cluster bomb impacts, seen in a residential neighborhood in Kharkiv
A controversial weapon
Cluster munitions are controversial because they detonate in mid-air, releasing a cluster of smaller bombs that fall indiscriminately over a wide area, potentially endangering civilians.
Smaller bombs also rarely detonate on impact, which is a threat for years to come.
More than 120 countries have signed a treaty that prohibits the use of this type of weapon, although neither Russia nor Ukraine are signatories.
The attack in a Kharkiv neighborhood
In one of the places where there was an apparent cluster munition attack in Kharkiv, in the Industrialnyi neighborhood, the rockfall effect was visible near a housing estate and a children’s playground.
Ivan Litvynyenko’s wife, Oksana, was seriously injured in the attack and later he died.
Litvynyenko, 40, told the BBC that the couple walked through the patio with her five-year-old daughter when the ammunition fell. Her 14-year-old son was inside her apartment.
“Suddenly I saw a flash and I heard the first explosion,” Litvynyenko said. “I grabbed my daughter and pressed her against a tree. My wife was about five meters away and she fell.”
An impact site next to a children’s playground where Ivan Litvynyenko’s wife was hit by shrapnel.
Oksana, 41, was hit by a shrapnel which penetrated his back, chest and abdomen, piercing his lungs and damaging his spine.
He was in intensive care for two months, until Sunday, when he died of complications from his injuries and diabetes, Litvynyenko said. “The doctors operated on her several times, but her body could not survive,” she said a few hours after her death.
Describing the attack, Litvynyenko said he saw “a series of explosionsmany bombs one after another”.
Two other residents who were inside their apartments at the time of the incident they told the BBC that they heard successive detonations. “You could hear explosions for several minutes,” said 26-year-old Danya Volynets. “When we got out, I could see the cars on fire. It looked like everything was on fire.”
Tetiana Ahayeva, a 53-year-old nurse, was standing in front of her building when the ammunition. “There was a sudden sound of firecrackers everywhere, many, everywhere,” he told Amnesty.
“We hit the ground and tried to find refugio. Our neighbor’s son, a 16-year-old boy named Artem Shevchenko, died on the spot. He had a one centimeter wide hole in his chest. His father had a shattered hip and a shrapnel wound to his leg.”
Oksana Litvynyenko with her daughter. Oksana was seriously injured in April and died on Sunday.
Doctors at a central hospital in Kharkiv who treated the victims after the playground attack said they saw penetrating wounds to the abdomen, chest, and backand collected metal fragments that matched the types of pellets found in 9N210/9N235 cluster munitions.
death of civilians
According to Amnestyin the attack on the Industrialnyi neighborhood, at least 9 civilians were killed and 35 wounded, detonating in an area of 700 square meters.
In another residential building, in the Haribaldi Street area of Kharkiv, a ammunition he fell into the doorway, killing two elderly women and seriously injuring another.
“There was a series of explosions one after another,” said resident Nadia Kravchuk, 61. “I went out and I saw a woman lying on her stomach and another woman lying here, and next to them was Lena, who lost both her legs. She was screaming: ‘i lost my leg‘”.
Tetiana Bielova and Olena Sorokina were sitting on a bench outside when a shell exploded nearby. They got up to enter the building but a second ammunition it fell right into the doorway, killing Bielova and another woman named Tetiana who was with them. Sorokina lost both legs in the explosion.
Nadia Kravchuk looks at the damage caused by a munition that killed two of her neighbors.
During a two-week field investigation, Amnesty recorded 41 attacks in Kharkivwhere at least 62 civilians were killed and 196 wounded, the organization reported.
His researchers found evidence of cluster munitions and unguided rockets that they killed people who were shopping, queuing for food aid or just walking down the street.
“These weapons should never be used“Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser, told the BBC. “They cannot be identified. They are area weapons, they have a devastating effect and cause many deaths and injuries among civilians.”
The use of weapons was “equivalent to deliberately attacking civiliansRovera said. “Russia cannot claim that it does not know the effect of this type of weapon. And the decision to use them shows an utter disregard for civilian life,” she claimed.
Russia he has previously denied the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine and insists his forces have only struck military targets.
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