August 14, 2015
President Petro Poroshenko
Presidential Administration of Ukraine
11 Bankova Street
Kyiv, Ukraine 01220
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing to bring to your attention two important concerns regarding the situation for civilians in the armed conflict zone: allegations that Ukrainian armed forces personnel have ill-treated civilians and the location of Ukrainian military objects in immediate proximity to civilian residences. We call on you to address both issues urgently to ensure that the Ukrainian government and its armed forces are conducting themselves and the conflict in compliance with their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.
Details of our findings from a recent trip that a Human Rights Watch researcher carried out jointly with monitors from the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), from July 18 to 21, are set out in the annex attached to this letter.
Co-location of military and civilian objects
In Avdiivka, Ukrainian armed forces occupy and use a former residential apartment building and another former boarding school building (from which the children were evacuated due to the conflict) as military bases. The residential apartment building and the buildings surrounding and in proximity to these bases remain occupied and used by civilians. Both military objects have been the repeated target of attacks, and civilians have been causalities of those attacks. Some recent examples are documented in the annex. In Mariinka, at least one Ukrainian armed force checkpoint appears to be in close proximity to civilian homes. On one case we documented a civilian home has been repeatedly hit in shelling and the homeowner was recently injured. We interviewed over a dozen civilians from Avdiivka and Mariinka during the mission who raised the issue of military objects in immediate proximity to civilian dwelling.
The laws of war, applicable to the fighting in Ukraine, require all parties to the conflict, to the extent possible, to avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas — or to remove civilians under their control from the vicinity of military objects. While displacement of the civilian population should be avoided, it is permitted if the security of civilians is involved or imperative military reasons demand it.
The Ukrainian armed forces should therefore reassess the military necessity of maintaining a military presence so close to densely populated areas and possibilities to relocate to areas that will minimize the risk to civilians and civilian objects; or take steps for the temporary relocation of civilians away from the vicinity of military objects to a location of safety in a process that respects international humanitarian and human rights law.
It is our understanding, that while the civilians in Avdiivka are free to leave voluntarily, and indeed civilians informed us that members of the armed forces told them it was in their best interest to leave, they have nowhere to go to. They have been offered no relocation options by the armed forces or other government agents.
We urge you to ensure that as a party to the conflict Ukraine fulfills its obligation to minimize civilian harm in the course of the fighting. As we have noted in discussions with Ukrainian government officials, throughout the past year we have made numerous calls on insurgent leadership in eastern Ukraine to stop endangering civilians in the territories under their control by placing fire points and other military targets in civilian areas.
We would also note that we are concerned by the use of a former boarding school (Avdiivka’s home for the under-aged) building by the military. Such use turns civilian educational infrastructure into a military object, and while not prohibited, the occupation and use of schools by armed forces makes those buildings vulnerable to attack from opposition forces. In addition to the disruption to the lives and right to education of the children who formerly occupied the building, military usage can lead to the destruction of important infrastructure and education materials that may have serious impact on children’s education after the conflict.
We draw your attention to the Safe Schools Declaration, which was made public in Oslo, Norway on May 29, 2015, and urge you to consider joining the 49 countries, who have already signed it. Signatories agree to endorse and use the new Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict, which call upon parties to armed conflict to avoid using educational buildings or making them targets of attack.
Ill-Treatment Allegations
We documented two cases in which Ukrainian armed forces unlawfully detained civilians, ill-treated and abused them, including beating and threatening them. The testimonies we received from the civilians are consistent and appear credible, and are set out in detail in the attached. We believe that these incidents represent a much larger problem of abuse of civilians by undisciplined and often intoxicated members of the Ukrainian armed forces. In both cases, for reasons that are explained in the details attached, the victims chose against seeking legal remedy. Therefore, with their permission, we are bringing this information to your attention, as it pertains to grave allegations of misconduct by members of the armed forces, including alleged breaches of the absolute prohibition of cruel and degrading treatment stipulated by international human rights law and international humanitarian law. We urge you to call on the commanders of military units and volunteer battalions and declare and enforce a policy of zero tolerance with regard to cruel and degrading treatment of detainees.
We would also underscore that over a dozen civilians we interviewed in Avdiivka stated that Ukrainian military officials are frequently seen drunk, including when moving around fully armed. Commanders should also be instructed on the necessity to boost military discipline and increase their efforts to prevent abuse of power and inappropriate behavior by their subordinates. We recommend that a special toll-free 24/7 hotline be created for people to report allegations of abuse of power or misconduct by military personnel.
Finally, we urge you to run a general inquiry on unlawful places of detention run by military units and volunteer battalions in eastern Ukraine and ensure prompt eradication of all unlawful places of detention in the territory under Ukrainian control.
Yours sincerely,
Hugh Williamson
Director
Europe and Central Asia Division
Human Rights Watch
ANNEX
Military Objects in Immediate Proximity to Civilian Residences
Today, more than a year into the armed conflict, pro-Russian rebel forces and Ukrainian forces continue to engage in hostilities notwithstanding the Minsk II agreements and it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of it. Those who live in the vicinity of military targets, such as checkpoints or recently established armed personnel quarters – on the both sides of the frontline – are particularly at risk of being killed or wounded and/or having their homes destroyed by shelling.
In an illustrative case Human Rights Watch and IPHR documented, early on the morning of July 18 a shell hit an apartment on the eighth floor of a nine-story apartment building at Molodezhnaya 20 in government-controlled Avdiivka, killing a 73-year-old woman, Anna Kostina, and her 20-year-old grandson, Sergei Malashkov. Based on our on-the-ground observations, including close examination of the impact site, craters, and the surrounding area, as well as our analysis of videos posted online, the area was attacked by indirect artillery fire from either large-caliber howitzers or mortars. Both are the kinds of explosive weapons that all parties to the conflict should refrain from using in populated areas because of their wide-area effects. In its report dated July 20, the OSCE Special Monitoring mission indicated that it had received information that the shelling had come “from the direction of ‘DPR’-controlled Spartak (10 km northwest of Donetsk),” which is an assessment we support.
The nine-story apartment building at Molodezhnaya 20 in Avdiivka has suffered particularly severe damage from shelling over this past year, and some of the apartments have been turned into craters as a result of direct hits. The building has 136 apartments in it, and 12 families still live there despite regular shelling attacks. The reason this building is so vulnerable to shelling is likely because it is located right next to another former civilian residential apartment building that Ukrainian forces have occupied during the conflict to use as a base. Military vehicles are parked in the yard in front of this building, some weaponry is in plain view, and a checkpoint is located on the other side of it. There is little doubt that the building at Molodezhnaya 20 gets hit as insurgent forces attempt to target this military object. Several hundred meters beyond the Molodezhnaya 20 building, in a former boarding school building, the Ukrainian military also has a base. Therefore, Molodezhnaya 20 – as well as Molodezhanya 19 and 17 and other nearby buildings, which also show serious damage from shelling – are in immediate proximity to two military targets that the adversary’s forces consistently attempt to attack.
When working in Avdiivka on July 19 and 20, we interviewed several residents of Molodezhnaya 20 who described shelling on the evening of July 17 and the morning of July 18. The shelling on July 17 began at around 8 p.m. – a mortar attack, according to local residents who consistently described the “whistling” sound of mortar shells – caused no civilian casualties but caused serious damage to the small building at Molodezhnaya 20B (right next to Molodezhnaya 20 and facing the Ukrainian base in the neighboring building), where a cosmetics company Delita was located. A staff member of Delita who had spent the night in the building told Human Rights Watch that the second attack began at dawn, at 4:25 a.m. on July 18 with the very first shell going through Delita’s roof and the second one also hitting the building directly and destroying the loading unit. Then, another six shells landed near the building. The attack continued for over an hour. When she finally felt safe enough to step outside, she saw that the damage Delita’s building suffered made it unusable. She also saw that the neighboring apartment building at Molodezhnaya 20 suffered a direct hit, and that one of the apartments on its eighth floor was entirely destroyed.
Several residents of Molodezhnaya 20 told us that when the shelling ended, at about 6 a.m. on July 18, they went out to assess the damage and saw that Anna Kostina's apartment was gone. Two women rushed up to see whether their neighbors were still alive and needed help. "We saw Seryozha's [Sergei Malashkov’s] body in the hall, next to the door of the neighboring apartment…" one of the women told us: "We left him there and entered what was left of Granny Anya's flat. At first we could not see her amid the debris…. I even thought, what if she's alive and someone else got her ahead of us and actually got her out…and then, I saw a fragment of her face in a pile of debris."
The building’s residents said that Anna Kostina had a fractured hip and could barely move around and her grandson had a severe disability and could not speak. According to them, they helped Kostina and Malashkov survive the previous winter, when the shelling was frequent, by bringing them food and hot water – the building had neither electricity nor water from late January to early March. They said that they repeatedly expressed concerns to local civilian and military authorities about the checkpoints and military bases located in the neighborhood having a negative impact on their safety.
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A wounded civilian from Mariinka we interviewed at the hospital in Kurakhovo also raised the issue of a military object being in close proximity to his home and flagging that his house suffered shelling damage twice over the past nine months. Vasily Kosarev, born 1952, suffered shell fragment wounds on the morning of July 19 when he was working in the vegetable garden next to his house at Moskovskaya Street, about 50 meters from a Ukrainian checkpoint. According to him, the sounds of incoming fire were loud and coming from different weapons from two different directions, seemingly from Alexandrovka and Mikhailovka, targeting that checkpoint.
Kosarev said he was standing next to his outdoors shower cabin when an explosion went off in his garden, knocking him out for a second. When he regained consciousness, he could barely hear anything, a shell fragment was stuck in the center of his forehead, and some fragments caught him in his left lower leg, which was bleeding profusely. Unable to call an ambulance because cellular networks were down, Kosarev had to ride a bicycle to the nearby checkpoint using his healthy leg and ask the military for assistance. Ukrainian servicemen at the checkpoint dressed his leg quickly, and a serviceman drove him to a checkpoint in a safer area, where an ambulance picked him up and took him to the hospital. According to Kosarev, his house had been previously hit on September 22, 2014, when a shell went through the roof. At the time, he invested all his resources into making the house livable but now all the glass in the windows was shattered once again, the walls were damage by shrapnel, and the fence was destroyed.
Ill-Treatment Allegations
During the mission, we encountered civilians who alleged cruel and degrading treatment by Ukrainian forces as well as the existence of unlawful places of detention on Ukraine-controlled territory. These allegations give rise to grave concern.
A civilian we interviewed in Avdiivka told us he was beaten, held overnight in an unlawful place of detention, and threatened with execution. The civilian, Andrei (real name withheld by Human Rights Watch), born 1985, a resident of Avdiivka, told our representative that late on July 18, a few minutes before midnight, he was having coffee with his friend, another local resident Sergei (real name withheld by Human Rights Watch), next to a 24/7 shop on Karl Marx Street. According to Andrei, a Ukrainian military serviceman in uniform approached them and told them to leave. From the way the serviceman was talking and comporting himself, it was clear to Andrei that he was under the influence of alcohol. Andrei replied that he had full respect for the military but military personnel should not be walking around drunk and harassing civilians. The military official walked away, and made a call on his cell phone. According to Andrei, some 15 minutes later, two jeeps with armed personnel in protective gear drove up. The serviceman who had accosted Andrei and Sergei previously, jumped out of one of the vehicles and attacked Andrei, throwing him to the ground, punching him repeatedly and kicking him with booted feet on his face and body. The other military servicemen got out of the car quickly and forcefully dragged their colleague away from Andrei. Andrei, whose face was bleeding, got up and said he would be making a complaint about the attack. His assailant accused him of being a spy for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and threatened him with more violence. Andrei said he would raise the issue with the military commander’s office.
The military personnel made a quick call on the radio, and within five minutes another group of servicemen showed up in another jeep. They tied Andrei’s and Sergei’s hands behind their backs, put black bags over their heads, and threw them into the vehicle. After a short drive, they unloaded their captives in a yard next to an apparent military base and took the bags off. Andrei saw that they were standing next to a large metal cistern – the kind used for railroad transportation of liquid cargo – with a sort of trap-door cut in it. There were several other such cisterns in the yard. The military took away their personal belongings, covered their heads with trash bags, wrapped some tape around the bags to keep them in place, told Andrei and Sergei not to take them off, threw both men into the cistern, and locked the trap-door.
Once inside, Andrei immediately tore off the bag. Inside the cistern it was pitch dark and suffocating due to the lack of fresh air. Another man was inside who said a military patrol detained him in the street with no identification documents and brought him there earlier the same night. The three men spent the whole night in the cistern, which had neither beds, nor chairs, nor any toilet facility. They were given neither food nor water. During the night, Andrei screamed several times that they needed air, but there was no reaction. At some point he heard shooting and explosions at a close distance and yelled: “What do you think you’re doing? Your position is being targeted and you’ve got people locked inside this barrel! What if we’re hit?” A man yelled back from outside: “So, you’ll croak! Serves you right!”
According to Andrei, the military opened the trap door for the first time close to 10 a.m. (he established the time later, after he had been questioned) and pulled out the third man. Soon afterwards, they pulled out Sergei. Finally, in approximately another hour, they came for Andrei, put another trash bag over his head, and led him into a building.
Once inside, still with the bag over his head, two or three men questioned him about his alleged connections to DPR. They alleged that prior to his detention he had been seen running around and screaming, “Glory to DPR!” Andrei denied the allegations and asked that they return his watch, which the military personnel had taken from him earlier. His interrogators laughed and said he would no longer need it as he would be executed shortly by a firing squad. They taunted Andrei, using abusive language, and demanded that he confess. About a half hour later, their commander walked in, said he had run a check on Andrei, and that a mistake had been made. The commander took the bag off Andrei’s head and said he and Sergei would be released immediately. The personnel returned Andrei’s watch, documents, and phone. In addition to the commander, there were two armed servicemen in black balaclavas in the room – the two men who had presumably been questioning Andrei for the past 30 minutes. The commander summoned several armed guards, who put another bag over Andrei’s head, took him to a car, and let him out in the street after a short drive.
Later that day, Andrei went to a hospital and got a medical certificate listing the traumas he received from the beating – “temporal [temple] region bruising on the left side of his face, injured cheek lining, bruising of the right arm, and a nasal hematoma” (copies of his medical documents and photographs of the injuries are on file with Human Rights Watch). The bruising on Andrei’s face and arm was clearly visible at the time of the interview, two days after the beating. Andrei said that on the same day he also went to see Sergei who had been released with no bodily harm. On July 20, several military servicemen visited Andrei at home to “explain the situation.” They said that his assailant insisted that he was a DPR propagandist caught screaming “Glory to DPR!” and that despite the fact that his assailant was drunk, they still needed to run a check as “there is a war going on and DPR spies are running amok.” They apologized for the “mistake” and asked him not to cause trouble for his assailant, who had supposedly suffered a contusion in the battle for the Donetsk airport, had been severely traumatized, and had a family with young children to support.
Under the circumstances, Andrei decided against pressing charges and asked Human Rights Watch to withhold the name of the unit which held him in captivity as well as the name of the base where he was held. At the same time, he stressed that his was not a stand-alone case. According to him, ten of his acquaintances, also young male residents of Avdiivka, suffered similar ill-treatment at the hands of Ukrainian armed personnel in the course of the past year, including unlawful detention, beating and extortion. Andrei said that one acquaintance had three hand grenades planted on him by military servicemen and had to pay them 15,000 UAH in exchange for his release. Andrei also alleged that many Ukrainian servicemen based in Avdiivka are often seen drunk, both on duty and off-duty. Numerous other residents of Avdiivka also complained to Human Rights Watch about drunken armed personnel roaming the town after dark.
***
In another ill-treatment case we documented in Avdiivka during the mission, a group of Ukrainian military servicemen allegedly forced their way into an apartment in a building at Molodezhnaya Street during the second week of May 2015. They confronted its residents – Natalia, Nikolai and their children 26-year-old Alexander and 15-year-old Maria (real names withheld by Human Rights Watch on their request) – and accused them of collaborating with DPR, detained the male family members using excessive force, and fired a pistol close to Natalia’s feet, with a bullet grazing her left foot and causing a light burn and a hematoma. According to Nikolai, he suffered a rib fracture as a result of rough handling by a military serviceman. The family members also alleged a coercive interrogation of Nikolai and Alexander, accompanied by threats, and a beating of Alexander with the aim of forcing confession.
Human Rights Watch interviewed Nikolai, Natalia and Maria in Avdiivka on July 20, 2015. According to them, a large group of military servicemen arrived on their doorstep at around 9 p.m. They provided neither an explanation nor a search warrant, threw both men on the floor, handcuffed them, and started dragging them out into the hall. Nikolai told Human Rights Watch that the serviceman threw himself on him and pushed him down and handled him with such force that his rib cracked, causing him intense pain and impeding his breathing. “They wouldn’t explain anything. I would’ve come with them quietly, if only they had told me I was being arrested, and so would my son. Arrest us, interrogate us, run a check – fine, but not like this. They were screaming we are DPR spies, calling us names, pushing us brutally… I could hear my rib on the right crack – it still feels a bit uncomfortable now, over two months later, and for the first few days I could barely sit or lie down, the pain was so bad. For about a month, I couldn’t take a deep breath, everything hurt,” Nikolai said.
Natalia attempted to prevent the servicemen from taking away her husband and son. She cried, screamed and held on to them. The group’s commander demanded that she move away and threatened to shoot her. When she failed to obey his order he fired his pistol in the dark hall on the floor apparently aiming close to her feet, and a bullet grazed the outer side of her left foot. As the servicemen were dragging Nikolai and Alexander down the stairway of the apartment building, another group of military personnel came up and entered the apartment where 15-year-old Maria was left in a state of shock.
Natalia jumped into a military jeep, where her husband and son were thrown and where the servicemen also put the family’s computer and cell phones they had confiscated. She told Human Rights Watch: “When they started dragging the men out of the apartment, I clung to them sobbing that I won’t let them go. Their chief screamed at me, he yelled I was a separatist from Donetsk and he had no life because of people like me, he called me ugly names, used obscene language – bad words that are offensive to a woman, … Then he fired his pistol.... I felt a burn and a sharp pain – my foot blew up with a huge bloody blister, but I just couldn’t leave my husband and son alone in their hands, I thought they’d kill them, so I hopped downstairs and practically threw myself into their car.”
According to Maria, the detention of her father and brother and the shooting incident occurred within ten minutes. The servicemen who remained in the apartment afterwards proceeded to carry out a search “turning the place upside down.” The teenager was extremely frightened. She was shaking and could not stop crying. One of the servicemen yelled at her demanding that she “shut up” unless she wanted to be “taken away and dealt with.” She continued crying, and eventually the serviceman stopped paying attention to her.
According to the family members, the military servicemen took Nikolai and Alexander to the Avdiivka police department and questioned them in different rooms. Natalia was left in the hall waiting. According to Nikolai, during his interrogation, it became clear that the detention and search were triggered by a photograph published online in which one could see a side of the apartment building, located next to their apartment building, with a military vehicle parked in the yard. The building in question used to be a regular residential building prior to the war but currently functions as a base for Ukrainian servicemen. Based on the angle of the image, the military assumed that the photograph had been taken from the balcony of Nikolai’s apartment. He told Human Rights Watch: “They asked me all sorts of questions about my supposed collaboration with DPR, what kind of assignments DPR tasked me with, what kind of photographs I took for them… They said they will scrutinize all the data on our cell phones and computer and in case they find some photographs or something confirming their suspicion, they will bring in my wife and rape her in front of me.”
As the military found no incriminating evidence on the family’s electronic devices, at around midnight they told Nikolai he was free to go. Nikolai and Natalia asked for information about their son but were told that he was “still being sorted out.” According to Nikolai, Natalia and Maria, Alexander returned home in the early morning. He said the military first questioned him at the police station, then put a bag over his head and drove him to an unknown location where they punched him repeatedly and beat him with booted feet demanding that he confess to collaborating with DPR and to having taking the photograph for them. His family members told Human Rights Watch that he had multiple bruises on his face and body as a result of the beating and stayed in bed for two days.
Neither Alexander, Natalia, nor Nikolai sought medical reports to confirm the injuries they allegedly suffered. At the time of the interview with Human Rights Watch, the side of Natalia’s foot still looked deformed and Nikolai complained about minor chest pain. The family did not file a complaint against the military about the abuse because they feared repercussions, for the same reason they asked that we withhold their names.
