Russian President Vladimir Putin should face a war crimes inquiry for Moscow’s brutal assault on Mariupol, which left thousands of people dead, countless buildings destroyed and was followed by a widespread campaign of Russification, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report analyzing the devastation wrought on the Ukrainian city.
The international watchdog found that Russia’s siege on the city in 2022 involved the repeated targeting and destruction of civilian buildings and infrastructure, an apparent violation of international humanitarian law.
It estimated that around 8,000 people died as a direct result of the fighting, drawing in part on a review of satellite imagery, photos and videos of the city’s cemeteries, but noted that the figure is a conservative estimate.
The 215-page report, based on research conducted over nearly two years in conjunction with Ukrainian human rights group Truth Hounds, detailed efforts by Russian authorities to erase Ukrainian culture from the city since its capture, limiting the movements of Ukrainians and imposing a pro-Kremlin narrative in its schools and public spaces.
Russian forces encircled Mariupol within days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, before launching a months-long bombardment to break down a stubborn Ukrainian military resistance. The city, which lies on the Sea of Azov in Ukraine’s southeast, saw some of the most intense and vicious fighting of the war.
“It was a cruel and devastating assault; people we interviewed who managed to escape described that period as hell on earth,” Ida Sawyer, the director of HRW’s crisis and conflict division, told CNN. “We see this as one of the worst chapters of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” she said. “We hope that this project will serve to help ensure that there is justice.”
The report traced the destruction by Russian forces of thousands of buildings, including hundreds of high-rise apartment blocks and civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and universities.
It also identified 17 specific Russian or Russian-affiliated military and national guard units operating in the city during the peak of the fighting in March and April of 2022, as well as senior figures who it said may bear criminal responsibility.
“It was clear that senior level officials up to President Putin were aware of the situation in Mariupol, and do appear to have been directly involved in the planning and coordination” of the assault on the city, Sawyer said.
Putin is already the subject of an arrest warrant for war crimes from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which says the Russian president bears individual responsibility for the unlawful abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The HRW report recommends that he and other high-ranking commanders are investigated and properly prosecuted for their role in apparent war crimes relating to the campaign in Mariupol, for unlawful attacks and “the possible arbitrary blocking of humanitarian aid and evacuations.”