ICYMI @AP and @frontlinepbs are gathering, verifying & documenting evidence of potential war crimes in #Ukraine, including attacks on hospitals, schools, residential areas & other civilian structures following #Russia's invasion pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
@AP’s own reports include visual evidence along w/ witness accounts of alleged atrocities. @AP journalists outside #Ukraine have confirmed details of other attacks- interviewing survivors &verifying authenticity of videos, photos posted online by officials and residents.
The @AP/@frontlinepbs online database will continue to be updated as long as the conflict lasts. The goal is to provide an independent accounting of events, apart from potentially inflated claims by advocates or misinformation spread by state-backed propaganda.
@AP @frontlinepbs This report by @AP independently documents and verifies 34 #Russia attacks on clearly marked health facilities in #Ukraine in the first month of the war apnews.com/article/russia…
Statistics for number of Ukrainian medical facilities damaged since #Russia invaded vary widely. #Ukraine Health Ministry says 248 medical facilities have been damaged, with 13 completely destroyed. WHO said 57 Ukrainian medical facilities have been damaged, some more than once
The @AP and @frontlinepbs have only counted those they could independently confirm. Read this report by @mbieseck @ekinetz @Beatrice_Dupuy (to which a large team of @AP reporters incl I contributed.) apnews.com/article/russia…
Watch this space for more reports and keep the database close for updates pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
@AP and @frontlinepbs have so far verified at least 90 potential war crimes since #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Here is the updated list. pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
The database will continue to be updated and reports will periodically compliment the data. If you want to get as close to what is going on on the ground, you can start here. pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
ICYMI. After discoveries at #Bucha, the database of war crimes in #Ukraine has been updated. Check it regularly. pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
The question that survivors, investigators and the world would like to answer is why. @AP Cara Anna & photo team take a devastating walk thru horrors committed in #Bucha. Residents describe encounters w/ #Russia troops apnews.com/article/7791e2…
The woman working to investigate, collect, catalog verify and investigate crimes #Russia commits in #Ukraine with "steely resolve" profiled by @ekinetz apnews.com/article/russia…
By March 15, around 1,200 crammed into the #Mariupol #theater,sleeping in offices,corridors,balconies, the basement. @AP investigation finds evidence that a #Russia airstrike killed 600 in the packed theater
@lhinnant,Mstyslav Chernov, @vasilisasUKR apnews.com/article/Russia…
@lhinnant,Mstyslav Chernov, @vasilisasUKR apnews.com/article/Russia…
This is how the death toll was estimated by the @AP apnews.com/article/russia… with no access to the site, communications severed, people coming and going constantly, and memories blurred by trauma, an exact death toll is impossible to determine.
“I was shot by a Russian soldier” Yura, 15, survived. His father didn’t. He was killed and died on the spot. Yura lives to tell and waits for justice with the hoodie that saved him- Cara Anna has the story apnews.com/article/b63f3a… #Ukraine #Russia #WarCrimes
“Why schools? I cannot comprehend their motivation,” @AP & @frontlinepbs documented 57 schools destroyed or damaged in a manner that indicates a possible war crime. It is just a fraction of those potentially committed during #Russia invasion of #Ukraine apnews.com/article/russia…
Targeting schools transforms the architecture of childhood into something violent& dangerous:a place that inspires fear.“There was no more schooling,” says Valentina Grusha from Kyiv after #Russia troops occupied her village,shelling schools &kindegardens
Oleksandr Stashevskyi, @JulietLinderman & @JHDearen spoke to #Ukraine teachers, administrators who survived such attacks, #Syria @Mr_Alhamdo who survived his school in Aleppo being bombed and @hjasminko who attended school in a cellar when his hometown #Sarajevo was besieged
"When they see their school destroyed, do you know how many dreams have been destroyed?" @Mr_Alhamdo, who taught his students for years in basements amid a punishing bombing campaign by #Syria government backed by #Russia to his hometown Aleppo & now second home Idlib, tells @AP
@hjasminko founded War Childhood Museum cataloging stories,objects of children in conflict around the world. He was working in #Ukraine with children displaced by #Russia’s 2014 invasion of Donbas region when the invasion began. He had to evacuate."To heal is the most difficult."
The video is an intimate record of #Mariupol under siege, a city that has become a worldwide symbol of #Russia invasion of #Ukraine. In it, Taira is a whirlwind of energy & grief, recording a child's death, treatment of wounded soldiers from both sides. apnews.com/article/mariup…
Using a body camera, Taira recorded 256 gbytes of her team’s frantic efforts over 2 weeks to bring people back from the brink of death. She got the harrowing clips (hidden in a tampon) to an @AP team as they left #Mariupol in a rare humanitarian convoy.
Taira disappeared with her driver Serhiy on March 16. A video aired during a March 21 Russian news broadcast announced her capture, accusing her of trying to flee the city in disguise. Taira looks groggy and haggard as she reads a statement positioned below the camera.
Raed Saleh, head of #Syria’s White Helmets,compared Taira’s situation 2what WH volunteers faced &continue to face in opposition-held Syria areas. (accused of organ trafficking & dealing w/ terrorists) “Tomorrow,they may ask her 2 make statements & pressure her 2 say things."
1 night, 2 children, brother & sister, arrive gravely wounded from a shootout. Their parents r dead. By the end of the night,despite Taira’s entreaties to “stay with me, little one,” so is the little boy.Taira turns away from his lifeless body“I hate (this)." She closes his eyes.
At one point, Taira stares into a bathroom mirror, a shock of blond hair falling over her forehead in stark contrast to the shaved sides of her head. She cuts the camera. Read full story and watch the videos here apnews.com/article/mariup… @VasilisaUKR @lhinnant @AP
Here is the @AP video based on hours of footage from #Taira's body camera that she smuggled out of the besieged #Mariupol shortly before she was captured by #Russia forces. She has not been heard from since apnews.com/article/ukrain…
We spent weeks talking to evacuees, rights activists, community members, volunteers in #Ukraine, #Russia, #Estonia, #Latvia, #France, #Norway, #Georgia, #Ireland & many more - Here is what we found: apnews.com/article/Ukrain… (w/ @lhinnant, Cara Anna, Vasilisa Stepanenko)
The abuses start not with a gun to the head, but with a poisoned choice: Die in Ukraine or live in Russia. Those with no money or contacts in #Russia — the majority, by most accounts — can only go where they are sent, eastward, even to the sub-Arctic.
More than 1,000 are as far away as Khabarovsk and Vladivostok, a 10-day train journey to the edge of the Pacific Ocean, according to people the @AP spoke with who saw multiple trains arrive over the weeks of the war.
A “emergency mass order” describes the “distribution” of 100,000 Ukrainians to some of the most remote and impoverished regions of #Russia. None was to be sent to the capital, Moscow.
Many Ukrainians stay in #Russia bc while they r technically free to leave, they have nowhere to go, no money, no documents or no way to cross the sprawling country twice the size of the US. Some fear that if they return, #Ukraine will prosecute them for going to the enemy
Russia’s reasons for deporting Ukrainians are not entirely clear, according to @avalaina, the head of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. She lists a couple in this report apnews.com/article/Ukrain…
“This is some kind of incomprehensible lottery – who decides where and what,” Ivan Zavrazhnov, a Mariupol resident who got out of #Russia.
Sme leave thr Ukrainian docs behind.Others hv thr Ukrainian passports confiscated & r offered citizenship or refugee status.Many end up in limbo w/o paperwork.only 55,502 hv temp asylum, acc to #Russia. Others hv uncertain legal standing in a ctry where they r often seen as enemy
Along with giving up their own documents, Ukrainian refugees are sometimes pressured to sign papers holding the Ukrainian government or military responsible for the war.80-old Valentina Bondarenko still doesn’t know what she signed.
“There’s nothing to read here, and we’re running late,” he told her.
“What is written here?” Bondarenko persisted.
“Everything we talked about,” came the reply. She signed. Her passport was returned to her a few days later.
“What is written here?” Bondarenko persisted.
“Everything we talked about,” came the reply. She signed. Her passport was returned to her a few days later.
Tens of thousands of #Ukraine people have returned to rural or industrial communities close to the front line at considerable risk because they can’t afford to live in safer places. @AP Cara Anna and @NMofty report apnews.com/article/russia…
Investigation by The @AP & @frontlinepbs found #Syria-owned Laodicea is part of sophisticated #Russia-run smuggling operation that used falsified manifests & seaborne subterfuge 2 steal #Ukraine grain worth @ least $530 million apnews.com/article/russia… w/ @mbieseck @Beatrice_Dupuy
@AP used satellite imagery &marine radio transponder data to track 3 dozen ships making > 50 voyages carrying grain from #Russia-occupied areas of #Ukraine to ports in #Turkey, #Syria, #Lebanon & others.
@AP Reporters reviewed shipping manifests, searched social media posts, and interviewed farmers, shippers and corporate officials to uncover details of the massive smuggling operation. #Russia #Ukraine #Grains
The ongoing theft of #Ukraine grains, which legal experts say is a potential war crime, is being carried out by wealthy businessmen and state-owned companies in #Russia and #Syria, some of them already facing financial sanctions from the United States and European Union.
The #Russia military has meanwhile attacked farms, grain silos and shipping facilities still under #Ukraine control with artillery and air strikes, destroying food, driving up prices and reducing the flow of #grains from a country long known as the breadbasket of Europe.
The report follows the journey of the #Syria-operated 138-meter-long (453 feet) Laodicea in the southern #Ukraine city of Melitopol, which #Russia seized in the early days of the war.
A copy of the ship’s manifests obtained by @AP claimed its port of origin was Kavkaz, #Russia. Its cargo was listed as nearly 10,000 metric tons of “Russian Barley and Russian Flour in Bags.” But the Laodicea couldn’t have picked up its cargo in Kavkaz.
The ship’s hull, which reaches 8 meters (26 feet) below surface, would run aground in the relatively shallow port, which acc to #Russia’s transport regulator can only accommodate ships with a max depth of 5.3 meters (17.5 feet).
@AP tracked 10 voyages made by the Laodicea and her sister ships — Souria and Finikia — from #Ukraine coast to ports in #Turkey, #Syria & #Lebanon. Laodicea is 1 of 3 bulk cargo vessels operated by Syriamar Shipping Ltd., a #Syria govt-run company under US sanctions since 2015
“They said, ‘Dance,’but I didn't dance. So they shot my feet” #Russia torture in Izium arbitrary,widespread &absolutely routine, @AP investigation found. @lhinnant @VasilisaUKR located 10 torture sites in Izium, gained access to 5 apnews.com/article/russia…
@AP spoke to 15 survivors of #Russian torture in #Kharkiv region, & 2 families whose loved ones disappeared into Russian hands. 2 of the men were taken repeatedly. 1 battered, unconscious #Ukraine soldier was displayed to his wife to force her to provide info she didn’t have.
@AP also confirmed 8 men were killed under torture in #Russia custody, according to survivors and families. All but 1 were civilians.
When we found Olga, she was in a small town in France just about to win the fight of her life — one mother against a vast Russian strategy to take Ukrainian children 1/X apnews.com/article/ukrain…
The war drove Olga from her Ukrainian hometown for the second time. But worse, the fighting in Mariupol separated her from her kids trapped there. That separation wasn’t by chance. 2/X
For Russian forces, it was part of a pattern: Take Ukrainian children and turn them into Russians. Tell parents if they want their kids, they can come to Russia and get them. 3/X
an @AP investigation found Russia’s effort to adopt Ukrainian children and raise them as Russians is well under way. 4/X >> apnews.com/article/ukrain…
Russian officials claim the children have no parents or guardians to look after them or were abandoned. But we found that Ukrainian children were deported to Russia or Russian-held areas without consent, fed lies about their parents & were given Russian citizenship &families. 5/X
It took Olga more than 4 months to get her kids back from Russia-held territories and countless phone calls, sleepless nights and hours of despair. 6/X
Experts say raising children of war in another country or culture is a violation of international norms and can be a marker of genocide. It is not something that is decided on the battlefield, but at the highest levels. 7/X
Read the story of Olga in this @AP investigation apnews.com/article/ukrain… . Thousands of children are still believed in #Russia. Ukraine says it has returned 96, so far. 8/End
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